Don't Call Me Penelope T
by FoamytheFearless
Summary: A young misfit tries to find happiness in this slightly AU, slightly dystopian fic. Unfortunately, her favorite hockey players are wanting to go back to Puckworld to escape the new, oppressive laws. How will Penelope cope? This is the T rated version. A longer, M. rated version will be posted eventually. NosediveXOC.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I do not own the Mighty Ducks, although I wish I could buy the rights to them! Please know that this is an AU where the Ducks arrived in the year 1999, and this takes place in 2000, when an election is coming up.

The cute cover pic that I used was drawn by my friend Aly1992 from DeviantArt.

Don't Call Me Penelope 1: Not Just a Bill

Fang's POV

I really should have gone to school that day. It was only my first week at Frieda Vent Fan High School, and I didn't want to start my freshman year as a truant. But my first two days had been disastrous. I'd been forced to take Home Ec instead of Auto Shop simply because I'm a girl (and here I'd thought they'd quit forcing girls to take that class in the 1960's). Making matters worse, the other kids refused to leave me alone, and I hadn't done anything to deserve it! All I wanted to do was learn and hang out with my best friend and Raw Insanity bandmate, Doom. But it was not to be. If the kids weren't throwing things at me or making fun of me for my lack of a sex life, they were daring their friends to ask out "the ugliest girl at the school" as a joke. The "Ugliest Girl in School" is me, but I'm certain you already guessed that! But it's not like I cared what those sadistic jerks thought about me. I just wanted them to let me be ugly in peace!

So, instead of going to school, I stayed home and slept until noon. Gradually, I eased out of bed and meandered to the living room, where I collapsed on the couch next to my talking Chihuahua, Loki. He was watching ESPN intently. We were a hockey family. Even the dog liked hockey. My mom was a Detroit fan, but Loki and I followed the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. I thought it was awesome that they had two female players and a teenager. But the most fascinating thing about them was the fact that they'd come to Earth from another universe! They'd even had a cartoon series made about them, and I'd been eagerly awaiting the next season for some time.

Needless to say, when I heard the commentator mention my team, I was shaken out of my sleepiness.

"For those who haven't heard," said the commentator, "Texas Representative Elijah Rutherford is rumored to be drafting a bill that could affect Anaheim. As you know, the NHL has no official rule preventing Tanya Vanderflock and Mallory McMallard from playing with their male teammates. However, if this bill were to become a law, it would call for sex segregation in every physical profession be it construction or sports. Mallory and Tanya would be forced to quit the team. Now, I don't know about you, but I think it should be up to individual leagues whether or not they accept women. The government should stay out of it! Fortunately for Mallory and Tanya, this bill is still being drafted and likely won't be introduced in time to affect the upcoming season."

"That's right," said the other commentator, "but due to recent political trends, I wouldn't be surprised if the bill gained some support."

"Even so, you can't blame Gary Bettman for this one! This is the government. If this bill does pass, it has nothing to do with the NHL. You can't blame management either! Phil Palmfeather says that Mallory and Tanya bring a lot of commerce to the team and he would hate to see them go."

"Indeed. Fans come from miles around to check out Mallory's *assets* and they're surprised when they find out she can actually play!"

At that comment, I went from being groggy to outraged! Ever since this mysterious group called PPOF began filling government positions, our country had started taking many steps backwards. Laws and attitudes were both taking a turn for the worse.

"You know," said Loki, "If Banks gets elected, and this bill makes it all the way to him, he'll pass it."

"Maybe it'll get introduced and voted on before the election," I said, hopefully.

"Doubt it," said Loki. "It's a long process. You've seen the Schoolhouse Rock video about bills becoming laws."

I groaned. Mallory and Tanya were my heroes. Hockey wouldn't be the same without them!

When I looked back at the TV, they were showing a clip of an interview with Mallory.

"How do you feel about Rutherford's bill?" the interviewer asked her.

Naturally, Mallory was fuming. "What do you mean, 'How do I feel?' If this bill passes, I refuse to stay on this planet. We'll find a way to get back to Puckworld. This is the last straw."

Soon after, they asked Nosedive the same question in order to get a male perspective. He sounded much more serious than usual.

"We can't do it without Tanya," he said. "She's not just solid D, she sets up goals for us forwards all the time. We're a tight unit. And Mal's not dispensable either. She's lightning fast! They don't even see her coming until it's too late. …Or if they do, they cower in fear." He laughed.

I smiled. "That's awesome," I told Loki. "No matter how much Nosedive and Mallory argue off the ice, when it comes to the Rutherford bill he's definitely got his teammate's back."

"You have such a big crush on him," said Loki.

"Do not!" I insisted. "Crushes are for giggly, Abercrombie-wearing girls. Besides, he's an alien." I tossed a pillow at Loki, but he ignored me. I looked back at the long-haired alien duck on TV. Nosedive didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about females and males playing hockey together. I wondered how gender relations were on his planet.

Soon, my grandmother came and sat down beside me. She put her arm around me. "I'm sorry you're having such a time with school," she said.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"Do you think that maybe if you started going by your real name instead of Fang, they might be nicer to you? Penelope is such a wonderful, feminine name."

"I don't like Penelope."

"Well, maybe if you started wearing makeup…"

I sighed. I wished my mom was awake. She was easier to talk to about these things. But Mom worked nights at the hospital, and I didn't want to interrupt her sleep.

"Let's talk about this later," I said.

"Oh, alright," replied Grandma. "I just think may be happier if you could get a boyfriend. There's nothing like meeting a boy that makes your heart turn flips!"

I sighed. "The boys at school…the way they talk about girls…the way they treat them…I don't want to be treated that way. I'm glad I'm single."

"Are they all that bad?"

"I don't want to talk about it." My school had was becoming an increasingly toxic environment. People enjoyed hurting each other emotionally and physically. Jocks would tell each other, "The best way to get a girl to like you is by treating her like crap." Is it any wonder that I enjoyed being single?

My grandmother knew she was getting nowhere in her conversation with me, so she went to get dinner out of the freezer so it could begin thawing.

The rest of the day, Loki was really quiet. It almost seemed like he was bothered by the news about the bill even more than I was! I wondered how that was even possible! At dinner, he didn't even want to eat the fried chicken my grandmother fixed. Instead, he just sat under the table and warmed my feet. That was so out of character. Normally, he loved people food and I had to try my best to keep him from jumping on the table to get it.

When I was half way through my meal, he said glumly, "I'm going to see Amber."

Amber was a toon cat he had met years ago when he had been captured by an evil animal control guy. The two had been thrown in a cell together, which subsequently made them fall in love. I thought cross-species relationships were kind of gross, but it was his business, not mine. And she seemed nice enough, at least when I actually saw her. The two had gotten married, but he hadn't wanted to move out and she hadn't wanted to move in with us. The whole situation was very unusual.

"Have fun," I told Loki as I let him out the door. "Maybe I can have a real life Catdog one of these days. Make me a happy grandmammy."

I thought that would make him laugh, but it didn't. He went out the door without a word. I contemplated following him since he was in such a bad mood, but it would have been no use. If he wanted to disappear, he would disappear. Somehow he had acquired quite a few strange skills like that. Escape and evasion, breaking and entering. Any time I asked where he learned it all, he would avoid answering.

I decided to turn my thoughts to other things. Hockey season was coming up, and I couldn't wait!

I went to my room and put in a VHS tape (remember those?) of hockey montages my mom had made. She mainly only recorded Detroit, so if I wanted to see the Ducks, I'd have to find footage of them playing Detroit. I fast-forwarded until I saw jade and purple.

Darren had Nosedive down on the ice and was giving him a pounding, but Nosedive didn't just lay there and take it. Generally, the ducks disapproved of fighting, but they didn't mind so much if it was self-defense: Nosedive threw some nice punches, too. In fact, Darren ended up with a bloody nose and had to be benched until the bleeding stopped. After the incident, Nosedive was right back up like nothing had happened. Too bad for Darren. Players love to try to put Nosedive out of commission because he's a puck hog and because he's not a very big guy. They assume it's easy to kick his ass. But, like a little keg of dynamite, he always proves them wrong. I wondered if I would make a good hockey player too. I had no doubt that I could get up and keep playing like he did, especially if I had the right kind of adrenaline rush. Seeing Dive and Mallory made me feel better about being only 5'1. If they could be short and tough, so could I!

I wondered if Mom had recorded the interview they did with him after the fight, so I fast- forwarded the tape. Sure enough, it was there. I remembered it very well from last season. "On our planet we don't believe in starting fights," he said, "but we know how to finish 'em!"

This was towards the end of last season, when they'd gotten a better grasp of our language. Unlike in the cartoon, which is only a summary of real events, the real Ducks came here only knowing their native language. They'd barely managed to communicate to the humans that they were athletes and that they wanted to play, but Disney had to find a way to condense that whole process into a single episode.

Thank goodness the humans were able to figure out what the Ducks wanted, because I loved watching these feathered phenoms tear up the ice!

I decided to dig through the VHS tapes until I found footage from the beginning of the season. I wanted to hear them when they were first learning English because I found it fascinating that we finally had real live aliens on planet Earth.

Of course, the government tried to say that they weren't real aliens and that it was only a gimmicky backstory constructed by Phil Palmfeather to bring in more fans. But I knew they weren't just humans in duck suits. They were simply too alien. In some interviews they would slip up and use a word from their language, and their eyes were slightly bigger than ours, although they are more similar to ours than they appeared in the show. In fact, there were several differences between them in real life and them in the show. Their bills were straighter, more like an Earth duck, but maybe not as long in proportion to their heads. And the animation failed to capture the texture of the feathers. But just like in the show, they had four fingers instead of five. They needed their gloves custom made. That was all the proof I needed. They HAD to be aliens!

Finally, I found a tape of hockey montages from last October and began watching all the Anaheim footage I could find. I ended up geeking out about the Mighty Ducks until about midnight. By then, Loki still hadn't returned from his date with Amber. I was beginning to worry, which made it difficult for me to sleep.

Then I realized I'd forgotten to listen to my nightly sleep music: _By the_ _Blade_ , the debut album of Blades N' Flowers. I put in the tape, hoping it would help me. I didn't listen to the lyrics because I didn't want to face the fact that my favorite singer was a bit of a pig. Instead, I just listened to the sound of his raspy voice and the wail of Bolt's guitar.

But that night, not even Jax Flower and Bolt could put me to sleep. I tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity.

 **Meanwhile**

Phil Palmfeather had been sleeping like a baby. "Money, money, money," he muttered in his sleep. *snore* "Money, money, money." Then, all of a sudden, his cell phone rang.

Phil cursed and sat up. "I thought I turned the ringer off!" he complained to himself. Just in case the call was related to a publicity stunt for the Ducks, Phil answered the Phone. "Phil Palmfeather speaking. Who is this?"

"My name is VonDrake. Silverwing VonDrake. I would like to meet with the Mighty Ducks."

"Are you wanting to set up a publicity opportunity for the Ducks?"

"No. I am from Peeravara. You call it Puckworld. I've been living away from my own kind for quite a while, but now I feel like they need me. I have to meet them."

"Great! Can I interest you in a contract? I might need to replace a couple players if that bill passes."

"I do not wish to replace McMallard and Vanderflock. Besides, I won't be able to play hockey until I can do something about my…physical condition."

"I see. Well, maybe I could get the ducks to fly out and meet you, but there might be a fee. Where do you live?"

"Tennessee. Frieda Vent Fan, Tennessee. I'll have directions emailed to you. Sound good?"

"Sounds great, babe."


	2. Chapter 2

Don't Call Me Penelope 2: Swayne

Fang's POV

I hadn't slept a wink, but somehow I managed to wake up when Grandma knocked on the door and asked me if I was going to go to school.

"I don't know," I grumbled. I dragged myself out of bed and just stood for a moment, getting my bearings. Then I grabbed a paper wad from my bedside table and un-wadded it. It was a note I'd gotten on my second day of school from Marcus Small. It read, "Put sum makeup on u ugly bich." I giggled at the fact that he couldn't even spell "bitch" right, but overall, I felt pretty crappy. If people like him were all I would ever meet at school, I didn't want to go.

Then I began to ask myself what Tanya and Mallory would do if they were in my shoes. Mallory could make minced meat out of those bullies, and Tanya would refuse to let people like that cheat her out of an education. So, because of the Mighty Ducks, I decided to go. But I needed some energy, so I took Blades N' Flowers out of the CD player and put in a Lava CD.

Lava was our mayor's band. Moka the mayor happened to be a personal friend of mine and I was thrilled when he got elected. I thought maybe he could change things around here. Unfortunately, mayors in our county have little power. Even shapeshifting mayors (more on that later) are subject to mundane restrictions.

Distorted power chords and over-the-top vocals surged from the CD player as I searched for something to wear that wasn't against the dress code. My pants could not have holes (which I thought was classist. What about people who can't afford new pants?). I couldn't wear all-black, show any skin, or look too tomboyish. Finally I settled on some blue jeans and a red shirt that Grandma had gotten in exchange for donating money to the fire department. Hopefully Mrs. Gere wouldn't accuse me of being a Blood because of the red shirt.

Once I was dressed and I'd wrestled all of the tangles out of my coarse, black hair, I stepped out of our farmhouse into the moist Tennessee morning. With Loki tagging along to protect me, I walked down my steep, tree-lined driveway to meet the bus.

00000

In first period, we got a surprise.

"TODAY," announced Mrs. Gere, "Instead of having BIOLOGY, we're having a PROGRAM."

Just as I began to wonder what kind of program, in walked the school counselor, Mrs. Swayne. The woman I had mentally nicknamed Igor (not for Detroit's Igor, but for the hunchbacked dude in all the horror movies). Under Igor's arm were two books: a plain brown book and a manilla notebook. In her hand, she was carrying a basket containing one of those old-fashioned, country-style stuffed muslin rabbits. Silently, she put the basket on Mrs. Gere's desk and opened the book. It was a strange book with no picture on the cover. All it had was a title: The Handbook.

As Swayne stared at the book, Mrs. Gere lowered her voice and said to Swayne, "It's a good thing you're here, because after the program I'd like you to talk to one of my students, Alex Calloway. Yesterday, I found a paperwad with one of his drawings on it. George Washington as a washing machine. George Washingmachine."

I laughed. Since I sat in the front, I heard everything Mrs. Gere said. Even her whisper was quite loud. I wondered why a picture of George Washington as a washing machine merited a trip to the councilor's office.

Swayne quietly told Mrs. Gere that she would take care of the problem, and then, in a voice that sounded like someone on Thorazine, she said, "Hello, children." Everyone in the class grumbled simultaneously.

"My name is Mrs. Swayne," Igor continued, "and I have brought a very special guest. I want you to say hello to Respectful Rabbit." She sat down her books and picked up the rabbit.

As the councilor blathered on, I could only think of one thing: I needed to get my hands on that book. I knew that it had something to do with PPOF, the people who were taking over the government. I knew they were using the school system as a way to brainwash the country, destroy imagination and kill critical thinking. I also knew they were connected to the Texas Representative who was drafting the bill that would affect Tanya and Mallory. As Swayne continued to talk, I began to plot.

Meanwhile

All the Ducks were awake except for Duke. Wildwing, Grin, Mallory and Tanya were sitting around the kitchen table and Nosedive was getting in the shower.

They heard Nosedive curse from the bathroom. "I always get left with the cold water!" he complained.

"Start getting up earlier!" Mallory shot back.

Nosedive ignored her and began singing loudly. The cold water didn't actually bother him that much. He just wanted the others to take him into consideration.

It was rare for Duke to sleep in later than Nosedive. The only time he ever slept in was when he had a hangover.

While Grin made some toast for everyone, Wildwing put some coffee on to brew. "Maybe he'll wake up when he smalls coffee," he said to the others.

"I donno," said Tanya. "He seems depressed ever since that failed attempt to break into LANL. I think he's afraid he's losing his skill."

"Maybe one of us should go poke him with a stick and see if he's alive," Mallory suggested. As soon as she said that, Duke walked through the doorway. He looked a little worse for wear. His feathers were matted and he hung his head low to avoid the bright kitchen light. He sat down at the table and rested his bill in his hand. His eyes were half closed.

"It's alright, friend," said Grin, who sat down beside the former thief. He put a hand on the older duck's shoulder. "It's not your fault you set off alarms and had to make a run for it when you tried to steal the gateway generator from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Failure is only opportunity in disguise."

This only made Duke feel worse.

"Don't be glum," said Wildwing. "You're a valuable member of this team no matter what."

"I'm not glum," Duke insisted. "I just need to let this headache go away."

"Hockey season is coming up," said Mallory. "Now's not the time to become an alcoholic."

"Relax, sweet'eart. I've known how to hold my booze since before you hatched."

"I hope you know, you really dated yourself just now."

Nosedive, who'd just walked in with a towel around his waist, caught the tail end of the conversation. "Take another look around, you're not goin' anywhere!" he sang at the top of his lungs. "You realize you're getting old, and no one seems to care! Tryin' to find you way again, YOU'RE TRYIN' TO-"

"Do you mind!?" growled Duke. "I have a headache."

"Aw, come on. What kind of partier doesn't like that song?" Nosedive

"I'm not becoming a drunk," Duke argued. He got up and fixed himself a cup of black coffee.

0000

After everyone had breakfast and did some stretches, the Ducks headed to the locker room to gear up for their morning drills. They'd only been there a minute when in walked Phil. He looked rough. He had big, red circles under his eyes and his ponytail was a mess.

"Are you alright?" asked Wildwing. "I guess Duke's not the only one who's under the weather."

"Babes, I've been up all night. I got this strange phone call in the middle of the night and then I couldn't go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried." Phil let out a huge yawn.

"There's always the couch if you want to take a nap," said Grin.

"I just might," said Phil.

"But first," Wildwing insisted, "tell us about that strange call."

"Right. Well, it was this guy who said he was from Puckworld. He said his name was Silverwing VonDrake, and he wants to meet you. So I told him he could, for a fee. Wanna fly out to Tennessee this weekend?"

"I donno about you guys," said Nosedive, "but to me, this sounds like a big, fat, trapola. I don't think we should go."

"It's probably some human who thinks he can replace me when I'm forced to quit," said Mallory. "Maybe I should go give him a piece of my mind."

"It's not that," said Phil. "he told me as much."

"You know," said Tanya, "If he really is from Puckworld, he might have some kind of dimensional gateway. Maybe he can help us get back home!"

"Tanya's right," said Wildwing. "I think we should go."

"Ok," said Nosedive. "Just remember, _Evil Dead_ took place in Tennessee."

0000

Fang's POV

It was Friday before I got a chance to steal the mysterious handbook from Swayne. It wasn't that hard. All I had to do was let Mrs. Gere catch me drawing Pokémon. There's nothing my school hated more than a kid with an imagination. When Gere saw my drawings, she took me to Swayne's office to see what was wrong with me.

In the office, I scoped out the area while Swayne asked me a myriad of prying questions. The book was on a shelf behind the councilor's desk. I knew exactly how to get it: I feigned a coughing fit and asked her to get me some cough drops. Luckily, she had none in her office, so she went to her car or the school nurse to retrieve them. While she was gone, I took the book from the shelf behind her desk and put it in my backpack. When she returned, she didn't even notice it was gone. She just continued asking me about whether or not I had ever had sex, done drugs, or listened to rock n' roll. I answered these questions truthfully: No to the drugs, no to the sex, and yes to the rock n' roll. She seemed to think my answers were peculiar, and told me that I needed to sign up for a class that could "fix" people like me. To her surprise, I agreed to go to the class (what better way to get intel on her?) Satisfied, she sent me out of the office so that she could meet with her next appointment: Marcus Small.

I was surprised to see him being sent to the councilor's office. He acted like a normal kid in this society: no imagination, no empathy. But I was happy to see him being sent to Swayne's office. I crossed my fingers that when Swayne found her book missing, she might suspect him instead of me.

When school was finally out, I went home and told Loki about stealing the Handbook.

"Well done," he said. "I'm impressed. But I hope you don't get in trouble!"

"I guess I'll find out Monday," I said.

"Would you and Loki like a snack?" my grandmother asked.

"Maybe later," I said. I was too excited to be hungry. "Let's go up to the barn and look at it," I told Loki. The upper floor of the family barn had become a headquarters of sorts for Loki, Doom, and me. There were tables, chairs, and even mattresses. There was a hole in one corner of the roof creating enough light to see by, but we also had lanterns for when we spent the night up there.

I took the book to the barn and plopped down on the floor so Loki could look at it too.

"It has a very plain cover," he remarked.

"That's one reason it's so suspicious," I said. I opened up to the title page, which said "The Handbook: PPOF Specifications for Instilling the Four C's."

I turned the page to find out exactly what the Four C's were.

"The four C's," I began reading, "'Are compliance, complacency, conformity, and complicity. In order to successfully influence the younger generations in a positive way, all three C's must be instilled.

"Children and teenagers must become Compliant, willing to follow the orders of adults without question. This helps them to become efficient employees when they enter the working world. In addition, compliant people seldom cause social unrest. If we want a peaceful world and a healthy economy, it is imperative that the next generation of workers be compliant and willing to yield to authority.

Secondly, children must learn to be complacent. People with high hopes and dreams only set themselves up for disappointment. Those who want too much out of life are likely to cause social unrest by trying to disrupt the natural order of things. A generation of workers that is compliant must also be complacent. The two go hand-in-hand. This book will teach PPOF-certified educators how to make children and teenagers accept the various roles assigned to them by society.

The third C is conformity. To ensure the preservation of America's values, youth should be encouraged to want to conform. In fact, mild bullying should be encouraged because it creates an environment in which those who are different face consequences. Parents should be told, of course, that bullying is looked down upon in PPOF schools. However, educators should actually only intervene if the bullying threatens a student's physical well-being.

Lastly, we have complicity. Once students have been successfully immersed in PPOF teachings, they will become helpers of the PPOF Cause whether they realize it or not. They will become collaborators, encouraging their peers to adopt PPOF values into their day-to-day life."

After reading all that, I stopped and took a breath. Loki looked at me. "These people are worse than the Saurians," he said, referring to the villains in the Mighty Ducks cartoon that I knew HAD to be real.

"That reminds me," I said, "I think Elijah Rutherford is a member of PPOF. We should go to the library and see if Lucian knows anything else about these people. What we've got is a brainwashing book. These psychos have to be stopped!"

"Elijah Rutherford? The despicable Texas Representative?"

"Yes. I think it's all connected."

"Seems likely… You're right. We should talk to Lucian about this. This seems like his area of expertise. Besides, he's got that vault in the library basement. We should probably see if he'll put the book there for safe keeping."

"Good idea."

Lucian the librarian had been a family friend for years, and he happened to share a secret with Loki and me. The secret of a land were stories are real, which just happened to be located in my field (this is where Loki met his cartoon wife). If anyone knew anything about a group that was damaging kids' imaginations and trying to take over the country, it would be him. He'd been dedicated to protecting imaginations since before I was born, and he was excellent at keeping and collecting secrets.

Loki and I strolled to the library at a leisurely pace. Slightly resembling a medieval fortress, that library seemed to have a life of its own. When we finally entered the musty stone building, we were greeted by a bright-eyed Lucian the Librarian.

"Hello, dear friends," he said, adjusting his glasses and brushing his long black hair out of his face.

"Hey," I replied. "I've got something to show you." I handed Lucian the book.

"The Handbook," he uttered and began looking through the pages. "My," he said. "This is not good. Not good at all. Where did you find this?"

"At school. I kinda…took it from the councilor. I'm not done looking at it. I thought we could look through it together. Maybe you know something about it…perhaps?"

"This is the PPOF Educator's Handbook," he said. "I have never seen it before, but I have heard of it. It is the standard manual in classes K through twelve now."

"How do they get away with it?" I asked. "This is a book about brainwashing and control!"

"These are bad times," said Lucian. "Come, have some coffee. I will explain what I can." Lucian led Loki and me to a table in the back of the library. Loki jumped up on top of the table so he could see the book and Lucian retrieved some coffee. Then the tall librarian joined us at the table.

"PPOF," he began. "People Protecting our Future. They are a not-so-secret secret society and their name is deceiving. But most of what I know about them is speculative. Basically, they are closely aligned with big business. They are trying to wipe out our youth's imaginations so that they are easier led my corporations. PPOF gets many followers by acting as if they have a religious or moral agenda, but in the upper echelons, it's known that it's all about money and power."

"So they are like the Illuminati?" asked Loki.

"Yes," said Lucian. "Some of them ARE Illuminati. There are many societies within societies, you know. The first government institution to be infiltrated by them is the school system. That is why the Literary Treasures books are no longer part of the curriculum. The Literary Treasures books encourage creativity and the PPOFers don't like that."

"I figured it might be something like that. Mind if I look them up on the computer?"

"That might not be a good idea," said Lucian. "They can monitor the internet. Look at this." He showed us a page completely dedicated to classical conditioning. "They know how to completely change you if they want to," he explained.

I shuddered. That's probably what they would try to do if I went to that special class Swayne had told me about.

"So," asked Loki, "Is anybody trying to stop PPOF?"

"PPOF has plenty of critics," said Lucian. "But they have been filling up government positions for some time now. The best way to stop them would be to run non-PPOF candidates. But even that is difficult. Both of the main parties have PPOFers in their ranks."

"And nobody votes for third parties," I said.

"Precisely. But do not lose hope. There are people out there dedicated to exposing the PPOF agenda. Knowledge is power, so let's learn all that we can about them and expose them for what they are. I do not like them any more than you do."

"I don't think anyone can hate them as much as I do," said Loki.

"Oh?" asked Lucian.

"I have my reasons," said the Chihuahua. "Let's leave it at that. Be sure and get in touch if you learn anything new."

"Same to you," said Lucian.

"Also," I said, "I was wondering if you would store this in your vault for us."

"Why of course," said the librarian. "It is very dangerous for you to have this."

"Thanks for helping us out," I told him.

"Thank YOU. You two have a good day and be safe. It's dangerous being anti-PPOF. That's why I've never attempted to drag you two into it. But now that you've seen the book, it's too late. You're already involved. But I'm glad to have you join the fight."

A/N: I'm trying something new with this story. I don't usually go back and forth between 1st person and 3rd person POV, but I'm hoping it might actually work in this story. In the original version, it is all told from either Fang or Loki's POV. Also,I hope this chapter doesn't seem rushed in some places. As I've said, this is a new version of a story I've already written. In the original version, I spend a lot more time introducing my OC, showing instead of telling, etc. But the result was that the Ducks didn't come into the story until the 6th chapter. Since this is fanfiction, I thought I should probably rewrite it so that the canon characters can be introduced sooner. However, if some readers feel like they needed more time to get to know my OC, I suggest reading the original when I post it. I spend several chapters describing her life at school painting a picture f the society she lives in.

In case anyone's wondering, the "getting old" song that Nosedive sings to Duke is "Victim of Changes" by Judas Priest.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3: At First Sight

It was Saturday, and I'd gotten to sleep in a little later than usual. It felt amazing to have actually slept in and to not have to go to school. I thought maybe I would jam with Doom. But first, I wanted to lay in bed a few more minutes. The bed was soft as a cloud and the smell of linen was familiar and comforting. As I laid there, I noticed something unusual. Loki was not laying under the covers in his usual spot near my feet. I thought maybe that meant Mom or Grandma had let him out to go to the bathroom. I looked out the window.

Loki was outside and he was running towards the barn as fast as he could. Curious, I ran outside to follow him. I didn't even bother getting dressed. I just charged out there with my Ozzy shirt and Ren & Stimpy night pants that were 5 inches too long. I didn't have any shoes on either, and soon my feet and the bottom of my sleep pants were soaked with dew. Apparently, it was still pretty early.

Loki continued running towards the barn, bouncing over the weeds that were taller than he was. He was far ahead of me. Then he veered to the left.

Finally, Loki came to a halt over the edge of a steep hill and I caught up with him. For once, he didn't pull one of his disappearing acts.

"Go back," he told me,

"Why?" I asked.

Before Loki could answer, this big white and green aircraft came in to view. It was the Aerowing! The ship the Ducks had flown in the cartoon show. It was far more impressive in real life.

"The Aerowing is real!" I exclaimed. "I knew they were aliens! This is AWESOME! And you were gonna keep this secret from me! Why weren't you gonna tell me the Mighty Ducks were coming?"

"Long story," said Loki as the Aerowing landed in the small valley before us.

To my surprise, the first person to exit the craft was Phil, the team's manager. He must have sensed some kind of money-making opportunity because he was smiling wide. That is, until he actually looked around. I had to stifle a laugh because he looked almost exactly the same in real life as he did in the cartoon.

"Are you Silverwing VonDrake?" Phil asked me, sounding disappointed. "I thought Silverwing was a duck. A male duck."

"I am Silverwing," said my dog. I thought my jaw was going to drop to the grass. Phil's jaw practically HAD dropped to the grass.

"A talking dog!?" asked Phil. Right as he said that, Nosedive bounded out of the ship. Wildwing, Tanya, Grin, Mallory, and Duke trailed behind him. "Dude!" said Nosedive. "Say 'Yo quiero Taco Bell.'"

"Fuck you," said Loki.

Nosedive looked at Grin and said, "See, if there can be a talking dog, Bernie was definitely a bear." I had to giggle.

Grin grunted and then Nosedive looked at me like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He took in everything from my messy hair to the soggy bottoms of my Ren & Stimpy sleep pants. I looked him over, too. I'd seen him on TV many times, but nothing compared to him in person. His golden bangs framing his smirky face. Those luscious locks trailing down below his shoulders. His playful eyes. A pair of tight, faded jeans with holes in the knees and a Batman shirt that was just slightly too big for him. His long orange bill. He was a duck for crying out loud! I told myself that I absolutely, in no way, had a crush on him.

When I snapped back to reality, I noticed that Loki and Wildwing were talking very urgently about something, but I couldn't tell what because they were speaking the Ducks' native language. I wondered how the hell Loki knew the Ducks' native tongue. Things were certainly getting weird.

Wildwing began scanning Loki with his mask.

"What are they talking about?" I asked Nosedive.

"Beats me," he said. "I haven't been paying attention." Of course. He'd been staring at me the whole time. I wondered if he thought I was ugly. The kids at school sure seemed to think so.

"I dig your pants," he said. "Ren and Stimpy are the shit. Ozzy too."

I grinned and went back to staring at his perfectly proportioned body. It was nice to see a guy close to my age that didn't look like a typical awkward disproportionate teenager. I mentally slapped myself upside the head. He's a duck!

"By the way," I said with a big dumb smile, "I'm Fang. And I already know who you are, Nosedive."

"The one and only," he said with an air of cockiness.

I forced my brain out of Nosedive Land and began trying to figure out what on Earth was going on.

"Loki," I said in an even tone, "will you please speak English?"

"I had to speak in our native tongue so they'd believe I'm really Silverwing. I was just about to explain to them how I ended up here, in this condition." My brain was aching from all of this information. Finally, I knew how come my dog could talk, but that just made my head swirl with more questions.

"Wait a minute!" said Mallory. "I just realized where I've heard your name before. You used to work for my sister and my brother-in-law at their candy factory in Takidon."

"Yes," said Loki. "But that was only a cover job. I was actually a student at Takidon Intelligence Academy."

So that's how come Loki knew all those spy techniques. Another question answered.

"So you're a spy," said Mallory. "How did you end up on Earth? Was it part of a mission?"

Loki shook his head. "No…if I explained how I got turned into a dog and sent here you would not believe me."

"Tell us," said Wildwing.

"It was a wizard," said Loki. Or Silverwing. Whatever. "He sent me here to fulfill a prophecy, which I have already done. I can say no more."

"Aw, c'mon!" begged Nosedive. "You got us interested. You have to tell us now."

"No," Loki said dramatically. "That story is irrelevant. It is not why I called you here. I called you here to offer my services as a spy. You shouldn't have to stay on this planet any longer. I can use my spy skills to find a dimensional gateway."

Mallory and Tanya exchanged hopeful glances.

"If you could do that," said Wildwing, "we'd do anything in our power to repay you."

Great, I thought. I'd just met Nosedive and his team was on the verge of leaving the planet. Phil wasn't happy either.

"Boobelas! Babes!" Phil whined. "You can't go back to Puckworld!"

"We can and we will," said Mallory.

"But! You guys are my livelihood! What could bring in more money than hockey playing aliens? I'll never replace you guys! Stay here. We'll keep the dog too! He can talk to the crowd during intermission. Do you know how much people would pay to see a talking dog?"

"We're leaving and that's final," said Mallory.

"How are you going to find a dimensional gateway?" Tanya asked Loki.

"I have two options. I can either find the wizard who sent me here, though I don't know where to start, or I can break into Los Alamos. I'm pretty sure they're working on portal technology there."

"We appreciate it," said Wildwing, "but breaking into Los Alamos is extremely dangerous. Duke already tried it once and failed…we don't want you to get captured or killed on account of us."

"And if I can't do it," said Duke, "I doubt you can. No offense."

"Oh yeah?" said Loki. "I've been trained to break into high security facilities. There's more of an art to it than breaking into museums."

"Alright now," said Wildwing. "No clashing of egos if we're all going to work together."

Duke crossed his arms. Loki's ears stood straight up on his head.

"You know," said Mallory, "There's a chance that Silverwing won't have to break into Los Alamos to get a gateway generator. There might be a blueprint for one on the Raptor."

"The Raptor's underwater," said Tanya. "The file that contains the blueprint is probably completely obli, oblita, you know, ruined for good. Then again, it might be worth a shot. Los Alamos is risky."

"I agree," said Wildwing. "Los Alamos should be a last resort. I say we check the Raptor when we go back to Anaheim. If we can't find a blueprint, then Loki can proceed with the break-in."

"And then what?" I inquired. "Is Loki gonna move to Puckworld with you guys? I hope not. Loki's the only person besides my best friend Doom that I get along with."

"Don't worry," said Loki. "I won't move away, but I would like to visit Peeravara from time to time. After all, Wildwing told me I could work for the team as a spy. And I'd love to join the team. As a player though. NOT an intermission spectacle."

"You're gonna play hockey?" asked Duke. "You're a dog."

"About that," said Loki. "I want you guys to come back this weekend and watch my neighbor Moka turn me into a shapeshifter by the light of the moon." Everyone except me and Nosedive looked at Loki like he was an escapee from a mental ward.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Nosedive. "Did you just say MOKA? As in Moka Metalhead?"

"Yeah, he's the mayor. He's a shifter himself. A human who can turn into a bat. Or a bat who turns into a human. I forget which. He lives right down the road."

"I doubt he's a shapeshifter," said Tanya. "I've never met a shapeshifter from this planet." Wildwing and Mallory nodded in agreement, but Nosedive was a believer.

"Dude!" Dive exclaimed, "I wish we'd had our own shapeshifter when Lizard Lips and his goons were alive! We'd have had the same advantage as Draggy. I bet Moka Metalhead could put the Chameleon to shame…I've gotta meet him."

"You can," I said. "If you guys stay in town tonight I can take you to meet him."

"Mega!"

"I don't know if we should stay," said Wildwing.

"Aw, come on," begged Nosedive.

"So, the contract's a go?" Phil asked Loki.

"Of course! That way you can still have a duck on your team when the others have gone home! A shapeshifting duck!"

"Yes!" said Phil. "You're a goldmine! You can shapeshift on the ice! By the way, where's the money you owe me for this meeting."

"I don't have it," said Loki. "I'm a talking dog, what do you expect?"

"Hey," I said, changing the subject to save Loki's ass, "I'd like to see Puckworld sometime. Maybe I can work as a spy for the Ducks too! I can be Loki's partner!"

"I don't know," said Wildwing. "You look pretty young. I wouldn't feel right about hiring a teenaged spy. You could get hurt. Besides, what would your parents say?"

"Not to mention," added Phil, "if it ever got out, it would be really bad PR for the Ducks. I can't have my team breaking child labor laws."

"If it ever got out," I explained, "I would be dead. That's what happens to spies when they're exposed. But as long as you don't go telling everyone about it, I shouldn't get caught. Loki isn't the only one who's got a knack for espionage. I have tons of books on it. Besides, I'll be 16 in the spring!"

"Reading a book is not the same as field experience," said Loki.

"Hey," said Nosedive. "I've done perfectly fine as the youngest member of the team. So don't underestimate her because of her age."

"Exactly!" I said, thinking the world of Nosedive at that moment. "I think I can do it."

Nosedive winked at me. I wasn't sure what he meant by it. Was he flirting with me, or something else?

"Let's figure out all the important stuff later," said Nosedive. "Maybe Fang would like to go for a ride in the Aerowing."

"Would I ever!" I exclaimed. "I've always wanted to fly around in the Aerowing!"

"I think we could make that happen," said Wildwing, his bill hanging open in a big duck-smile.

A/N: Great mother of DuCaine, all the dialogue! I'll try to make my next chapter less dialogue heavy! I hope this was an enjoyable read!


	4. Chapter 4

Don't Call me Penelope 4

I took a deep breath and boarded the Aerowing. This had only happened to me in dreams. I stood in amazement, looking at the ship. It had more gauges and buttons than they'd drawn in the cartoon. The people from those UFO shows would die to get their hands on this.

Just like he did with Granddaddy and me, Loki helped himself to Phil's lap. Phil looked with disgust at the dog hairs being shed onto his suit, but he didn't ask the Chihuahua to move. That's when I realized I had no place to sit. There were only seven seats. I looked around awkwardly…

"You can always sit on my lap," Nosedive suggested happily in that infectious raspy voice of his. "I won't let anything happen to ya. I can probably fasten you in."

I found myself grinning. I'd just met him, but I took absolutely no issue with sitting in his lap. I wasn't sure what had come over me. He's a duck, I reminded myself. I thought that I would come to my senses any minute, but it didn't happen. I went ahead and sat in his lap. Neither one of us is very tall: my head came just an inch or so below his bill. Fortunately, the seat belt was able to accommodate both of us. He needed one hand free sometimes to help his brother operate the controls, but he kept hold of me with the other. I tried not to enjoy it, but I lost the battle.

I closed my eyes as the Aerowing took off. I felt myself losing my stomach, but soon the nausea went away and I looked out the window. My house and the hills surrounding it began to shrink. Soon I could see all of the neighbors' houses. "This is so awesome!" I said. "I'm so glad to meet you guys. Y'all are amazing! I've been your biggest fan ever since you landed here!"

"Yeah," said Loki. "She's the living, breathing Nosedive encyclopedia."

"Or really?" asked Nosedive, but I didn't acknowledge him.

"Hey!" I shouted at Loki. "I like Mallory and Tanya too. . . .Actually. That came out wrong. I like all of you. I'm gonna have to get all of your autographs before you go back to Puckworld. I wish you guys weren't leaving…"

"We have to leave," said Mallory. "I don't want to spend another minute here."

"Have you ever thought about staying on Earth and fighting the new laws instead of going back?"

"No," Mallory replied. "I say we let the humans deal with this on their own. I'm ready to get back to my own planet where I'll be treated like a real hockey player."

"So it's true? The sexes really are equal on your planet?"

"Of course," she said. "It's always been that way, even in our prehistoric days. The only difference between me and Wildwing is that I lay eggs. And it's not like that incapacitates me."

"So, then, do the males do an equal share in taking care of the eggs?"

"If they're worth a damn!"

I laughed. You just have to love Mallory. At that moment, she'd given me more faith in males than I'd ever had in my life.

"That's so unbelievable," I said. "It sounds like your planet was a Utopia before the Saurians invaded! I understand why you want to go back. But you have no idea how much I'd love for you to stay! What if I said I had some intel on the people who are taking over the government? Would you stay then? We need strong women and guys to help us overthrow these assholes."

"Maybe you should just move to Puckworld with us," Nosedive suggested. "This planet might be a lost cause."

I smiled, but didn't answer. I couldn't leave my family, not even for Nosedive.

"My baby bro kind of has a point," said Wildwing. "And it's not our place to tell humans how to run their government."

"The conspiracy buffs say aliens do that all the time!" I pointed out.

"Huh. Not us," said Mallory. "I don't see the point in getting caught up in this planet's B.S. since we have a planet of our own to go to!"

"But I have the PPOF BRAIN WASHING MANUAL!"

Mallory wasn't impressed. "I'm sorry, but we're leaving."

"Not if I get that brain washing manual and use it on you!" said Phil.

"I donno about Mal," said Nosedive, "But my brain's not washable."

"'Cause you don't have a brain to wash," Mallory jabbed.

"Don't worry," said Nosedive, totally ignoring Mallory, "even if we go back home, I'll come back and visit you."

"Really? You just met me. Why would you…?" Even after all the signals he'd given, I doubted a hottie like him would be interested in me.

Nosedive didn't answer my question. Instead, he asked me one. "So. Taco Bell Dog says you're a Nosedive encyclopedia. What all do you know about me? Maybe I can help you separate the fact from the fiction."

I hated being put on the spot. "Uh…well, you're left handed. You play left forward and you were born sometime around your planet's equivalent of spring, right? Hatched, rather. Your favorite color is blue. You're 5'7 and seventeen years old. Last season you scored 72 goals and had 36 assists. And you love comic books, cartoons and music. Hey, aren't you in a band? Or am I thinking of Darren . . .?"

"You can't tell me apart from him?" he asked, although I don't think he was as offended as he sounded.

"Um, I mean, there's some big differences obviously."

"To answer your question, he has a band but it's not as cool as my band."

"I'm starting a band too," I informed him.

"Do you play drums?" Nosedive asked excitedly. "All we need is a drummer and we'd actually be a band."

"Nope. I'm a vocalist. I don't share my role with anyone unless they're just doing backup."

"Ditto."

I nodded, glad we were on the same page. Too often I'd had people approach me and say I should be in a Lacuna Coil type situation, with a male singer and a female singer. Or two female singers. Like I wasn't good enough on my own.

After a moment, Nosedive said, "Led Zeppelin only needed Robert Plant. The Crash only needs Nosedive Flashblade. It's good to meet a singer who has her own band instead of trying to steal other peoples' bands."

"I don't really have a band," I confessed. "I have a keyboardist. Two people don't make a band. But I'd never try to steal yours. People who do that are slime."

"Tell that to Adria," he said.

I couldn't believe what I said next. Curse my lack of self-control. "Is she your girlfriend?"

"Zelka no! She's just a seamstress with a shop downtown. Makes clothes for local rockers. And like most people, she thinks she can sing."

"Oh." The relief in my voice was evident. To be honest, I was paying more attention to Nosedive than the hills and houses below. I was glad we had music in common, because I wasn't as interested in comics and video games as, say, Doom. I hoped he wouldn't fall in love with her!

"So," I asked, "what kind of music do you guys play?"

"We're still trying to figure that out. I'm into straight-up oldschool rock and metal. Thrash likes Hardcore, and Mookie likes punk 'cause she used to be in a riot grrl band called Teeth. I guess when you combine all those things you get kind of a crossover band only with a sexy extraterrestrial vocalist."

He sure was full of himself. I didn't know shit about hardcore, crossover or riot grrrl. The only thing I knew about back then was classic rock and some of the more well-known metal. "What is a riot grrrl band?" I asked.

"It's punk rock for female humans where they write songs about how twisted this planet is. You'd love it!"

It did sound like something that would be right down my alley. I made a mental note to check out riot grrl music as soon as possible.

Next thing I knew, we were landing. I hoped my grandparents wouldn't be able to see the Aerowing outside the window. Once we landed behind the hill, we were out of sight of the house. If they didn't see the take-off or the landing, chances are we'd be unnoticed.

The moment we exited the Aerowing, Nosedive asked if we could go meet Moka yet.

"I think we should discuss all the important things first," said Wildwing.

"You mean like how this hill would be the perfect place for a giant slip and slide?"

"Well, no," said Wildwing. "More like how this dimensional gateway thing is going down. If the trip to the Raptor doesn't yield any results, we'll have to come back and get Loki so we can take him to Los Alamos."

Without a doubt, that was important. But Nosedive had inspired me. "Let's build a slip and slide!" I said. "I can go round up all the hoses, but we won't have enough to reach, so we can go borrow some extra ones from Moka!"

"Alright!" Nosedive was rearing and ready to go, but Wildwing rained on our parade.

"It'll take a while to build a slip and slide," said the white-feathered goalie. "I thought we would head back to Anaheim soon."

"Aww man," groaned Nosedive. "Why can't we stay? If we don't finish the slip and slide tonight, we can go to a hotel and come back and finish it tomorrow."

"Better yet," I suggested, "you guys could stay in the barn. There's old mattresses there. Plus, I can get y'all snacks!"

"I can't sleep in a barn!" protested Phil. "What about bears? They eat humans!"

"I guess you'll just have to hope Winnie the Pooh doesn't run out of honey," Nosedive joked.

Mallory rolled her eyes and said, "Once you've been in the military, you learn to sleep anywhere."

"I like it here," said Grin. "It's peaceful."

"I am kind of tired," admitted Wildwing. "OK, we'll stay."

"But I forgot my allergy medication," said Tanya. "The ragweed here is really getting to me."

I thought about all the dust in the barn. It would wreak even more havoc on Tanya's sinuses than the ragweed.

"I'll get you some antihistamines," I promised her. "We have plenty at the house."


	5. Chapter 5

Penelope Teen 5

I couldn't believe it. I'd just met the Mighty Ducks and they'd agreed to spend the night in my barn so that Nosedive and I could build a giant slip and slide. Luckily, my grandmother was in her room watching a Lifetime movie. She didn't see me walk out of the house with the armful of sodas, snacks, allergy meds, and blankets that I'd gathered for my new feathered friends.

When I reached top level of the barn, the ducks were already making themselves at home.

"Perfectly comfortable," said Mallory, who was laying on the floor just to show that she was completely fine with rouging it. Their manager, Phil, had claimed one of the dusty old mattresses, as had Tanya, who kept her hand over her nostrils. The others were standing around talking. Nosedive walked up to me and asked if I needed a hand.

Like Mallory, I have a bit of pride. "I can carry it all," I said. "I'm stronger than I look." But I was thrilled that he was trying so hard to impress me. It was a good sign.

Tanya sneezed.

"Here ya go," I said, and handed her a box of antihistamines.

"Thanks," she sniffled.

"Ready to go meet the mayor?" I asked Nosedive.

"Ready when you are!"

A smile spread across my face. "Right this way," I said. I began climbing down the steps to the first floor. Instead of exiting the front of the barn, I went out a gate in the back. Nosedive followed me and looked out at the woods.

"He lives in the woods?" asked Nosedive. "Makes sense, for a shapeshifter."

"Actually," I explained, "he lives down the road. But I don't want to risk my folks seeing us out the window, so I'm taking a secret route through the woods."

"Cooela!" Nosedive started humming the theme from Mission Impossible.

I led the Dive down a trail that paralleled the family garden, hoping my stealthiness would prove to him that I could work for the team as a spy whether Wildwing thought I was too young or not. It was almost as if Nosedive read my thoughts.

"You know," he said, as he stepped over a fallen tree, "what Wildwing doesn't know won't hurt him."

"What do you mean?"

"You can still gather intelligence for us. Instead of reporting back to him, just report back to me."

"Really? You mean it?"

"Yeah! Just promise me one thing. Don't get yourself killed. I'd like some time to get to know you."

"I'll try my best. I want to get to know you, too. And I don't exactly want to die."

"Good." he said. "Also, according to Mallory, people in Intelligence - especially on this planet - expect a high salary. But right now we kinda…owe the city for some collateral damage. It might be a few months before I can pay you right."

"You don't have to give me money," I insisted.

"You deserve something for helping us out. How should I pay you?"

"With your presence," I said. "I've always wanted to hang out with you.

"Well, I was hoping we could do that anyway."

How could anyone so charismatic and, well, (I had to admit) pretty want to hang out with me? I was grinning like an idiot. I kept trying to make myself stop, but the grin kept fighting its way back onto my face. For the umpteenth time, I mentally smacked myself in the head and reminded myself he was an alien duck. Besides, I really didn't want to become another silly, boy-crazy girl like my classmates.

Oh well. I wasn't boy-crazy. I was just Nosedive-crazy. I doubted I'd ever act this ridiculous over anyone but him.

"So how and why did Silverwing get turned into a dog?" Nosedive asked. "And why doesn't he want to talk about it?"

I wasn't sure what to say. The secret involved me, and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But it was exactly the kind of thing that would interest Nosedive. If I told him, he'd be hooked on me.

Against my better judgement, I said, "Meet up with me outside the barn tonight after the others are asleep. I have something to show you, and I'll explain everything."

"Cool! I can't wait to - Spider!" he screamed as he walked into a spider web (I'd gone right under it without noticing because I'm so short).

"Here," I said, and gave him a stick to break down the spider web with. I was glad he didn't shoot at the spider. I'm a little bit soft-hearted about these things.

"Thanks."

Soon, we came to an area where my house was slightly visible through the trees. I led Nosedive on a little detour and then back to the main trail, pretending I was a scout showing him to the enemy's stronghold.

"So what about these PPOF people?" he asked me. "How did you learn so much about 'em?"

I told him all about how I had stolen the Handbook and found out all about PPOF's plan to brainwash people and destroy their imaginations.

"Dude, that could mean the end of comic books and cartoons for your entire planet."

"I know."

"Well, I don't know how much longer we'll be staying on this planet, but as long as we're here I'm gonna try to stop them."

"Awesome! Maybe tomorrow I could take you to the library and show you book!"

"Hell yeah!"

Before long, I could see Moka's trailer.

"I used to not even know Moka was my neighbor," I explained. "I actually met him at a hotel where Doom and I put on a little concert to raise awareness about animal rights. Bats, to be specific. He told me he was gonna run for mayor one day and I'd make a good campaign manager. I never did become his campaign manager, but somehow he won the election. He lets me listen to his band practice."

"Maybe he can help me find a drummer!"

"He hasn't been able to find one for me, but Dorothy Ann's offered to fill in until I can find somebody."

"Think she could swing several bands?"

"…Maybe." Then I asked him, "When I find enough members to have a rock n' roll band, do you think people in the scene will hold it against me that I started out as a hotel singer?"

"Nah," he said reassuringly. "You know Moka! And you know me. That gives you lots of cred."

"I hope you're right. That's Moka's, by the way."

"The trailer?" he asked, not sure he was looking at the right place. We stepped out of the woods and beheld Moka's yard, which contained a Harley-Davidson and black Dodge Ram with a pontoon boat hitched to it.

"Yep." I nodded. The old, wooden steps leading up to the little white trailer were rather rickety, and I walked up them carefully, but Nosedive wasn't half as cautious. He bounded up the steps. Then I knocked.

After a good minute, Moka barely cracked the door open and peeped outside. When he saw me, he let us in. He had no shirt on and his hair was a mess. Apparently his bandmates, also shapeshifting bts, were still asleep in the bat mansion.

"Hey, Moka," I said. "I want you to meet Nosedive. He's a singer too. In a band called the Crash."

"Well, I can't be giving free lessons," Moka said. "That would be a government handout."

"I don't need lessons," Nosedive said with more self-assurance than I've ever had in my life. Then politely he added, "It is nice to meet you though." He took a look at the bat-sized mansion on Moka's table and nodded approvingly. I hoped Moka wouldn't pull me into a jam session. Nosedive may be good-looking and fun to hang out with, but people with more confidence than me always make me nervous. What if he thought I sounded like a horse with laryngitis?

"So what brings you here?" Moka asked. "With a star hockey player."

"He just sorta turned up in my field," I explained. "The rest of the team's in the barn, but I brought Nosedive 'cause he wanted to meet you. And so we could borrow a hose. Plus, I have a question."

"What's that?" Moka asked, and then he yawned.

"When were you going to tell me about your plan to turn Loki into a shifter?"

Moka shrugged. "Loki told me not to say anything and I agreed not to. This politician keeps his word."

"I wonder if he was planning on ever telling me…"

Moka shrugged. He didn't want to be in the middle of family drama. "So you need a hose?"

"Yeah!" Nosedive announced. "We're building a big-ass slip n' slide!"

"You'll need a lot of hoses," said Moka, who began brushing his hair. He made a sad face when he saw some hairs had come off on the hairbrush.

"I have a few," I told him. "But I doubt they're enough."

"What are we gonna slide down?" Nosedive asked.

"My grandfather has some old tarps in the shed."

"You'll want something smoother than a tarp," said Moka. "I tell you what. You two hop in the truck and I'll take you to Lowes and buy you a roll of that long plastic shit. That's what Squiggy from the Dirty Mops did when he had that Summer Bash back in '86. He used that long plastic shit. But to make it really slippery he put a shitload of lube on it. Baby Oil works too, and it's better than wasting lube. Also, you'll need a way to fasten it to the top of the hill."

"I have pegs in the shed that came with an old slip n' slide I used to have."

"We'll need something softer to hold it in place at the bottom," Nosedive pointed out. "Since we'll be sliding into it."

"Bean bags," I said decisively. Then we piled into Moka's truck. Though the PPOFers had been complaining in the media about rock n' roll, they hadn't yet taken away the classic rock station. Moka cranked up the music and I heard Sammy Hagar screaming that he couldn't drive 55.

"Perfect driving song," said Moka, who sped down my rough, rocky driveway causing everyone - even my short self - to bump their heads on the top of the truck. I didn't mind. I liked being cramped up in a truck with Nosedive, who didn't seem to mind the spontaneity of hanging out with me and my crazy neighbor. In fact, he seemed to love it. We'd get along great.

I hoped my folks weren't looking for me. Luckily, they were used to me roaming the hills and forests all day when I wasn't at school or eating dinner.

Nosedive was singing along with every song on the radio and I was truly impressed that he knew the lyrics to all these old songs. I didn't think anyone my age (except a couple of macho assholes at school who thought they were special because they could play the main riff from "Smoke on the Water") listened to classic rock.

"You sound awesome," I said. He had this squall to his voice, reminiscent of Steven Tyler or maybe Janis Joplin. For a moment I wondered if he had a better voice than me.

"Yeah," said Moka. "You make me feel like a washed up old bastard." He ran his hand through his thick red hair, taking inventory of how much he had left.

Nosedive shrugged. "Comes easy to me."

"Fang's really good, too," Moka said. "Have you heard her?" I silently cursed Moka.

"Nope."

"Come on, Fang. Sing for us."

"You know," I told Moka, "the reason I'm comfortable singing at the hotel is because most of the people are out-of-town visitors. If I suck, I'll never have to face them again. Even then, sometimes there's cocky bastards that have to come up and spew 30 minutes of criticism."

"You can't let being shy hold you back," Moka said. "And you have talent."

I couldn't believe I was letting the presence of a really hot guy make me nervous. I refused to change into a scared little mouse just because I'd discovered the opposite sex. So I turned down the radio (I refused to try and sing along to ZZ Top) and sang the silliest thing ever because I was on the spot and it was the first thing I could think of.

To the tune of a well-known Christmas song, I sang "Joy to the world Dragaunus is dead. We barbequed his head! What happened to the body? We flushed it down the potty. And round and round it goes, and round and round it goes. And rooooound and rooooound and round it goes." At first I was relieved that I didn't run out of breath on the final "round it goes." Then I was embarrassed because it was a ridiculous song.

"That was awesome!" exclaimed Nosedive. I was shocked that he liked it, but then I remembered he wasn't known as the most mature guy on the team. Of course he'd get a kick out of a song like that. I smiled so wide my mouth ached.

"It really was," he said. "You have great breath control. The ending of that song isn't easy."

"I'm just now getting it down," I said. "I wouldn't have if I didn't have Moka for a mentor." Though I was still fishing for compliments, I began to feel almost cocky.

"Most people don't say I'm awesome," I said, still yet fishing for more compliments. "They usually just cross their arms and say 'Hmmm. Ya got some potential' or 'you're good…for a girl' and we all know what that really means."

"There's always gonna be people like that," Nosedive said. "You might think they're confident and they know what they're talking about, but don't listen to 'em. If they had real confidence, they wouldn't have to shit-talk people. They're fucking posers."

I'd heard Moka and my mom say similar things, but I guess I had to hear it from Nosedive Flashblade for it to sink in. I realized something about him. His confidence is real. Judging by his cockiness, I was just sure he would act like a know-it-all just like most musician-types. But he didn't. He encouraged me, because he was Nosedive fucking Flashblade, the future of rock n' roll, and he had no need to feel intimidated by others who had talent. That's the kind of attitude I aspired to have.

"Just remember," he told me. "No matter how good you get, you'll still probably murder the National Anthem. No singer at any of our games has ever done that song without screwing it up. If we can pull off the National Anthem without fucking it up, we'll be GODS."

I laughed. From years of watching hockey games, I knew he was right.

"The two of you should duet someday," said Moka.

Nosedive and I looked at each other.

"We're both without a drummer," said Nosedive.

"Well," said Moka, "I've told Fang this and I'll tell you. If you need a temporary drummer I'll be sure and ask Dorothy for you."

"You'd do that?"

"Hey, us long-haired freaky people have to help each other out!"

"True. So," Dive asked Moka, "When do I get to see you turn into a bat?"

"Right NOW!" Moka screamed like a madman. Then, once the road turned into a straightaway, he shifted into a tiny spotted bat - way too small to steer the truck. Nosedive and I held each other because we were certain we were going to collide with oncoming traffic. But the next instant, Moka was a human again, cackling wildly and keeping the truck on the correct side of the road. Slowly and awkwardly Nosedive and I let go of each other. I could tell he still wanted to hold me, and I wanted to hold him, but neither of us wanted to be too forward.

After I was no longer scared for my life, it occurred to me how soft his feathers were. And his hair smelled nice. Whatever shampoo he used smelled so sweet I wanted to eat it. For the zillionth time, I mentally smacked myself. This time, it wasn't because Nosedive was an alien duck. I'd gotten used to that part. This time, I smacked myself because I'd sworn all my life I would never want a relationship. From the moment I was born, people told me that meeting a guy would make me want to turn into a typical girl. I didn't want to change! I liked myself, even if the people at school didn't. Besides, thanks to some of the things I'd witnessed in the past…

...Well, that's another story for another time.

A/N: I enjoy writing so much that I literally squeeze it in every moment I can! This story was already finished over the summer, so I update each chapter as I edit and proofread it. I hope I'm not updating too often! If anyone thinks so, please let me know.


	6. Chapter 6

"You'd hit it off with my buddy Frindel," said Nosedive, as Moka continued driving us on our quest for slip n' slide materials.

"Who's that?" asked Moka.

"He's a streel, which is kinda like a bat, only they glow in the dark and they're shaped a little different. They're one of the other intelligent species on my planet. Well, some of them are intelligent. I wouldn't say Frindel is, but he's cool to jam with. Maybe you'll get to meet him."

"Hell yeah," said Moka.

I nodded in agreement. "I have to meet him. I love bats! I'm the bat expert! That's how Moka and I met to begin with."

"Maybe I'll be able to find him when I go back home. I doubt he was enslaved during the invasion. You can't get much work out of him, and he's so small it's easy for him to hide. At least until he opens his mouth, then he sounds like a tea kettle."

As we neared Lowes, it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't be seen with Nosedive. If I was going to work for him as a spy, we should probably keep a good distance between each other in public. I probably shouldn't even wear Mighty Ducks jerseys in public. We probably couldn't go out together. Maybe I didn't want to be a spy after all…

As Moka pulled into the Lowe's parking lot I made a snap decision that I did want to be a spy. I'd always secretly wanted to be a spy. I could work out a way to see Nosedive on the down low. "You two go in," I said. "I'll wait here."

"You're not coming?" Nosedive asked. He sounded so disappointed.

"I'll explain later," I said.

"Are you sure?" I think he thought I was crazy. Who wouldn't want to be seen in public with two celebrities?

"I'm sure."

"Ok, then...C'mon, Moka. Let's wreak havoc in Lowe's." I imagined them running around the store and riding on those big metal carts. Maybe getting kicked out of the store for goofing around and roughhousing. I was probably missing out, but I didn't want my spy career to end before it even started.

As I waited for the guys to return, I contemplated my situation. There was this queasiness in my stomach and this feeling that just wouldn't go away. On a deep level that I tried to ignore, I hoped that Nosedive and I were becoming a couple. On another level, I chided myself for even thinking of a relationship with him. What would I do when he went back to Puckworld? And if he stayed on Earth, would I change? I couldn't date him. Not without telling him some very important things about me first. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be fair to either one of us. I was being overtaken by that burning, sickening feeling you get when you know you need to talk to someone about something, but you dread it so strongly it becomes a physical ailment.

Soon, Nosedive and Moka were climbing back in the truck. Moka threw a roll of plastic sheeting behind his seat. Nosedive squeezed in next to me as close as he could get, and Moka started the engine.

"Thanks for the plastic shit," I said, glad that I remembered my manners.

"No problem," said Moka, suddenly speaking in a southern accent. "Ya know ya coulda rolled the winder down. It's hot in here."

Nosedive and I both stifled a laugh. "He was doing that the whole time we were in Lowes," Dive explained.

"Damn it!" said Moka, switching back to his Yosemite accent. "I catch myself doing that all the time. Whenever I go out in public I try to talk like the locals. All politicians do that to a degree. Sometimes when I'm around friends I forget I can talk normally."

Then Moka drove us to Wal-Mart. When he found a place to park in the vast parking lot, he shoved some money into my hand and whispered in my ear, "Fang, my adopted daughter…could you be politically active and get your mayor some Rogaine? I can't be seen buying that…stuff."

I tried not to laugh. Moka had a full, thick head of hair. "You don't need-"

"Shhh." He said.

But I continued, "Doom's dad tried it and he grew little hairs that fell out a week later. You don't want that shit."

"Dude," said Nosedive, overhearing the whole thing. "Your hair's fine."

"That's just Moka," I said. "He's obsessed with his hair."

"The old gray mayor just ain't what he used to be," said Moka. He'd been down on himself recently. But luckily, we were able to talk him out of buying the Rogaine. I still ran in Wal-Mart and bought some bean bags, even though I'm not crazy about Wal-Mart.

When we reached my little road, Gobble Hollow, I asked Moka to pull over so Nosedive and I could ride in the back of the truck. I doubted anyone would see us. Besides, most of my neighbors were over 60 and probably wouldn't go telling any supervillains they saw me with Nosedive Flashblade.

So we rode in the back of the truck, the wind blowing through our hair.

As we rode up the driveway, we got jostled all over the bed of Moka's truck, but that just made it more fun. Soon, we were back at Moka's trailer. We got out and Moka handed me the plastic shit. "You ever gonna come back and party?" Moka asked Nosedive. "I'd love to meet your bandmates."

"I'll be back," he said. "Even if I move back to Puckworld, I'll have to come visit this hottie!" He put an arm around me. I thought I was going to pass out.

When we got back to the trail and (hopefully) out of Moka's hearing distance, I asked, "What was that about?"

"What?"

"You think I'm hot?"

"Well, yeah, for a human."

"You don't think I'm hot. You're just doing that flirty celebrity thing."

"No, honest! You're smokin'"

I burst out laughing. "Me?"

"Yeah, man, I bet you have to beat the boys off with a stick."

"I have to beat them alright, but it's 'cause they make fun of me. They throw shit at me, they tell me I'm ugly and they dare their friends to ask me out as a joke. What's worse is it's not just the jocks at school who make fun of me. It's the rock n' roll kids! The people who listen to the same music I listen to! Music that I loved since I was a baby in my mom's arms. No wonder I don't have a full band. And I don't know why I just told you all that. I just met you. But it's ok that they hate me. I just wish they would hate me silently instead of giving me grief all the time. I mean, it's not like I want boys to like me anyway. If I was ever gonna break down and get a boyfriend he wouldn't be like those dickheads at school. Sorry I just spilled my guts to you."

"It's ok. Sounds like you're going through what Mallory's going through. She doesn't like many humans either. And I don't blame her. No offense. You're not like most humans."

"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me!"

"Well, don't tell anybody I said it. I'm supposed to like humans. You know, public relations and shit."

"I won't tell anyone."

"And not all rockers are assholes, by the way. You'd love my bandmates. I think the problem is your hometown. You're living inside a big, fucked up Jeff Foxworthy joke. You need to move to Peeravara with us, or at least go out west."

"It's just not an option…" I couldn't begin to tell him all the reasons why I couldn't move.

Soon we reached the top of the hill. We realized we really needed to get rid of some of the weeds if we wanted a place for our slip n' slide. I looked at Nosedive and said, "I just realized this is gonna be a lot of work."

"We can do it," he assured me.

"Wait right there," I told him. I ran back down to my house and grabbed us each a pair of hedge trimmers. It took us quite a while before we had cleared out enough space for our slip n' slide. We'd cut down all the big stuff and then stomped around the area to make everything lay flat. Then we took a break. We went in the barn and grabbed some sodas from the pile of stuff that I'd brought earlier.

"How's the slip n' slide coming?" Wildwing asked. "You two were gone a long time."

"Moka took us to get supplies," Nosedive explained.

"No hanky-panky," said Loki as if he were my dad. I shot him a look. As much as I wanted to keep my newfound interest in a member of the opposite sex a secret, everyone seemed to pick up on it.

"In all honesty," said Tanya, "he probably couldn't get a human pregnant, so they're probably safe. As long as neither has any di- you know, diseases."

I thought I was gonna spit out my soda like in one of those cartoons.

"Presumptuous aren't we?" said Nosedive.

"We're just friends," I said. "Hell, we just met!"

We didn't work on the slip n' slide for the rest of the night. Instead, we sat around and talked. The Ducks told all kinds of fascinating stories about Peeravara. They talked about the food, the scenery, the vehicles (mostly hover cars and things very similar to snowmobiles), and all sorts of things. I felt bad for them. They missed their home so much. But I was still selfishly glad they were stuck here, or else Nosedive and I would never have met. Soon, it was time for me to go eat dinner. Loki and I went back to the house to put in an appearance.

"You seem a lot happier today," said Grandma as she gave me a plate of southern fried chicken and some sweet tea.

"Mmm hmm," I mumbled, determined to keep the day's events a secret although part of me was bursting to tell somebody.

A/N: This chapter isn't my favorite. It mainly serves as a transition piece bridging 5 and 7. 7 will be up soon though! Without giving too much away, it takes a bizarre twist!


	7. Chapter 7

Don't call Me Penelope T Ch. 7

I'd officially crossed into real teenagerdom. I'd snuck out the window of my room at 11 p.m. to meet Nosedive Flashblade and go on an adventure. But instead of going to a rave or an orgy or any other typical teen thing, I was going to show him something completely unbelievable that I hadn't shown to anyone new in years.

Fortunately for me, the moon was full, but I'd brought a flashlight just in case. The night air felt wonderful. It was a warm night with only a slight breeze. But I have to be honest. It was a little bit creepy walking all the way up to the barn at night: the trail bordered the woods. My hair stood up on the back of my neck. I kept thinking I saw eyes glowing in the forest. But that's ok. I've always kind of liked scary things.

When I got to the barn, Nosedive was leaning against the building. He looked beautiful and mysterious in the moonlight. He walked close to me and whispered, "I thought they'd never go to sleep. Especially Phil. He's really freaking out, he won't even piss in the woods unless one of us goes with him." Nosedive's breath tickled my cheek.

I stifled a laugh. "Glad he finally passed out. Now, the secret. Follow me. We have to exit the field and then re-enter it a different way."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because that's how the magic works."

"Magic? Cool!" He didn't seem as surprised as I thought he'd be. Then again, this was a guy who had been to other dimensions and dealt with the evil Asteroth himself. Dive was brimming with energy, practically bouncing. I wondered where he got all his enthusiasm. I led him to the edge of the field, over the cattle guard, and through the gate. Then we looked at each other.

"Here goes," I said. I crawled under the fence and Nosedive followed close behind. Once we had both re-entered the field, we stood up and looked around. The field looked completely different than it had several seconds ago. Where there had once been endless expanses of weeds and a smattering of trees, there was now a whimsical meadow and a town that could be seen in the distance. We were in another realm.

It was night there, just like it was at home. But the stars looked brighter and closer. The air was a little warmer and fresher. There was no smell of pollution. To Nosedive it looked amazing, but I had seen this place years ago, before it had begun to fade. It was once more vibrant. It once looked more real.

"Wow," Dive said, "I've been to other dimensions before, but I've never been to one like this. Usually crossing into another dimension requires technology."

"This place is completely magical," I said.

"What is this place?"

"This," I explained, "is Harcourt. The land where people and places from books and TV are real."

"Seriously?" He began talking a mile a minute. "You're not just shitting me? This is rad! This reminds me of a comic I read about these fairy tale creatures. Actually, no, this is like the _Neverending Story_ or _Narnia._ Can we meet Mr. Tumnus? Better yet…Bernie the Bear! Can we meet Bernie the Bear?"

"I wouldn't know where to find him. But I can show you Arwood town. It's that town in the distance."

Nosedive followed me down the path that lead through the meadow. I considered holding his hand, but then changed my mind. "This is so cool!" he continued. "I KNEW something like this had to exist somewhere, but of course nobody ever believed me when I said so. How did you find this?"

"That's what I about to explain. You see, Loki and I were part of a prophecy. That's why he was sent here. This wizard who works as a special advisor to the queen of Harcourt used magic to bring Loki's spirit to earth and transform him into a puppy so that the two of us could work together to save this place from and evil witch named Marlina. It just so happens, she was also a teacher."

"Figures!" said Nosedive.

"Anyway," I explained, "This place used to be even more beautiful. But I think its fading. It needs people to use their imaginations in order for it exist."

"Like Fantasia?"

"Sort of," I said. I thanked the stars Nosedive was every bit as nerdy as me. "And people are losing their imaginations. The kids at my school quit being into imaginary stuff when they were in first grade. I think it's these PPOF people. They're instilling a lack of creativity in people so that the public will be easier to control. I hope this place isn't doomed."

"Man…is there anything I can do?"

"Not if you're moving back to Puckworld."

"There's got to be some way to stop those people."

"They can be stopped, but it'll take a lot of work. And you can't tell anyone about this place, alright?"

"Of course. I know how humans are. They'd exploit the crap out of a place like this. No offense."

"None taken." In fact, my views on my own species weren't much different than his, but at least we both knew that not ALL humans are bad.

By that time, we were walking along the cobblestone streets of Arwood Town. It was a charming cross between a modern town and a medieval one: some of the buildings had straw rooves, but modern lamps could be seen glowing in the windows. The houses were painted all sorts of different colors and the lampposts looked like the one from the Chronicles of Narnia. The town was asleep-Nosedive and I were the only people on the street.

"This place is hoppin,'" he remarked sarcastically. "I wanna meet cartoon characters!"

"The only place nearby I can think of offhand that doesn't fold around 9 o'clock is Toon Town."

"Dude! I wanna go! Is it close?"

"It is if we catch a cab."

We found a bench where we could sit and wait for a cab. I sat as close to him as I could get, but I kept my hands between my knees. Holding hands, tempting as it seemed, would only lead him on.

I smiled and looked up at the stars. This was right down his alley. I hoped it would be enough to keep him interested in coming back to Earth and visiting me after Loki found a gateway generator.

"I'm serious when I say I don't want you guys to leave," I told him.

He gave me a mischievous look. "Why's that?"

"Because I love hockey and you guys are my favorite team."

"If you watch hockey all the time, you must have seen at least one hockey player you think is sexy," he said. I could see he was digging for compliments, trying to get me to admit that I had a massive crush on him.

"I don't get crushes," I said.

"Oh, there has to be some hockey player you think is hot."

"Shanahan," I said with a smirk. Predictably, Nosedive was jealous.

"Oh really? Does he have a totally cool watch like this?" He showed me that watch from Bringing Down Baby. "Or a sexy voice like mine?"

"Well no," I said. "But I hear he plays the saxophone."

Nosedive laughed. "That's just Shanahan blarney. Everyone knows he makes up random shit in every interview he does."

"Yep," I said. "That's Shanny alright." Shanny really was one of my favorite non-Anaheim hockey players, but I'd never had sexual fantasies about him or anyone else for that matter.

"I don't actually have a crush on him," I admitted. "I just think he's a great player and a funny guy. But you're better. You, Mal, and Tanya are my top three." As an afterthought, I added, "You're so obvious. You already told me you think I'm hot…you're trying to figure out if I think you're hot."

"Do you?"

"I donno," I said nervously, but the smile on my face was so big that he had to know the real answer.

Soon, a cab sped by and we jumped up to get the attention of the driver. Only there was no driver! Rather, the driver was the car itself-it was alive. The headlights were like its eyes and below them was a toothy grin.

"Dude this rocks!" Nosedive exclaimed as we hopped in the back seat.

"Where to?" asked the car.

"Toon Town" I said, "but I just remembered I'm broke."

"I've got it covered," said Nosedive.

"Well," I insisted, "next time we hang out I want to pay, 'cause equality and stuff."

"Of course."

"Not that we're a couple or anything." Geez I was so awkward.

The car's driving was more reckless than Moka's and he had us in Toon Town in 5 minutes flat. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree. Nosedive pulled out some money and handed it in the front seat, unsure how the car would receive it. To his relief, a hand reached out of the glove box and took the money.

We laughed and got out of the car. The streets were filled with all kinds of cartoon characters. Donald Duck was cussing and shaking his fist at some drunk who almost ran him over. A black puli/laborador mix sat outside of a bar, leaning against the wall with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Let's go in there," said Nosedive.

"Sure."

Walking into the bar ahead of us was Betty Boop. I crossed my fingers that he wasn't checking out her ass.

As we went in, the door man didn't even I.D. Us! It was great! Then again, in a town where babies smoked cigars, I highly doubted two teenagers would get in trouble for walking into a bar. The place was full of every kind of creature you can imagine: pigs, dogs, rabbits, alligators.

"Finally," said Nosedive. "A bar where an alien duck isn't out of place."

Before anything else we went to the bar. Back then, I didn't drink alcohol, so I ordered a Shirley Temple and Nosedive got Jack & Coke (he made me swear not to tell Wildwing). Luckily, the bartender didn't I.D. him. After the bartender handed us our drinks, we walked past a table full of rats playing poker and made our way towards the front. "I always go to the front," I said.

"Me too," said Nosedive. "I like to be near the band." We sat at a table at the very front, but, for the time being, there were no performers on the stage. "Jessica Rabbit's in between sets," said the talking vacuum cleaner at the table beside us. Then, as is on cue, Jessica Rabbit stepped onto the stage in a red dress, her on leg peeking out of the slit of her sequined dress, and began singing "Where the Boys Are" in her husky, sultry voice. I'd never heard her sing that song before, and I thought she did a terrific job.

I looked over to see that Nosedive was looking at her.

"What?" he said. "I like her version of this better than the version by Fifi Le Fume."

"Mmmm hmmm. I like her version better than Fifi's or Connie Francis. But still..." It's true. I was a fan of her voice and I dreamed of being able to work a crowd like her, only minus the sex. I didn't want to be yet another female singer who relied on sex appeal. It was so overdone.

Jessica stepped off of the stage and came to our table, sticking her boobs in Nosedive's face as the lyrics flowed out of her.

"What do you say we ditch this joint?" I asked. "There's lots of other bars in Toon Town."

"Someone's jealous."

I grabbed his wrist and led him out of the bar. "You'd play patty cake with her, wouldn't you?" I asked him. The moment we were outside, I let go of his wrist so as not to be flirty.

"I'd play patty cake with you!"

"Patty cake is the equivalent of sex here, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "It's not how Peeravarisan have sex! C'mon, let's play patty cake."

I grinned another big dumb grin. It's not like patty cake was actual sex, so I supposed it wouldn't hurt to play it. But, like sex, it was something I had no experience with.

"I don't know how," I explained. "I'm a patty cake virgin."

He laughed. "Well, you've seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, haven't you?"

"Yeah, years ago. I don't remember how it all went down."

"Don't worry," he said. "I can show you. It's simple." He stopped in his tracks and faced me.

"You would know, wouldn't you? I bet you play patty cake with all the girls."

"Only on weekends. Now, what we're gonna do is clap our hands, and then we're gonna high five with our right hands. Then after that we do the same thing, only with our left hands."

"Oookay." I said, and hesitantly began playing patty cake with him.

And that's when Lucky Piquel and Bonkers D. Bobcat made their grand appearance.

"Stop right there!" spat Bonkers. "You're under arrest for playing patty cake in public!"

A/N: I do not own Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop, Fifi LeFume, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Luckey Piquel, Bonkers or any other Toon Town resident featured here.

If anyone's curious, the story of Fang saving Harcourt is told in completion in my story Order of the Red Fox, all 16 chapters of which can be found on DeviantArt: art/The-Order-of-the-Red-Fox-481991871

Fifi LeFume: watch?v=tIUcdDWBlqU


	8. Chapter 8

Don't Call Me Penelope T Ch. 8

Trigger Warning: Contains mentions of abuse. I tried to make it vague as possible for the sake of my readers, but it may still be triggering.

"I'm the one who's supposed to say that!" yelled Lucky Piquel. Bonkers D. Bobcat had just told Nosedive and me that we were under arrest for playing pattycake in public.

"Nuh-uh!" Bonkers insisted. "It's my job!"

Dive put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Let's run."

We began running in the opposite direction of Bonkers and Lucky knocking Goofy and Daffy Duck out of the way. But the fuzz followed in hot pursuit. "This is all your fault!" growled Lucky as he huffed and puffed.

Nosedive glanced back at me and realized I wasn't running as fast as he was (what can I say? I'm an artist, not an athlete), so he hung back and took my hand. I tripped over all sorts of small cartoon characters as he pulled me down the sidewalk. "Sorry!" I called back to them. "So sorry!"

Like idiots, we kept looking behind us. But it's a good thing we did, or we wouldn't have seen Lucky and Bonkers steal a grocery cart from an old lady and jump in it, Bonkers using a broom to steer it. They were careening towards us faster than lightning and everyone on the sidewalk was getting out of their way.

Fortunately, the traffic had temporarily thinned out and we were able to dash across the road. We managed to get to the other side right as Bonkers and Lucky's cart collided with three of the seven dwarves, who were exiting a nightclub. Bonkers and Lucky went soaring through the air, with Bonkers landing in a street vendor's box of tomatoes and Lucky landing crotch-first on the rail outside of the nightclub. We could hear him howl in pain.

"Your pickle's not so lucky now, is it?" Nosedive yelled. We took off down the street laughing. Then we hailed a cab and went back to Arwood Town.

We got the cab to drop us off at the bench we'd sat at earlier.

"That was a blast!" said Nosedive. "Now what?"

"I want to show you something." I said.

"Ok."

We exited the town and went back through the meadow. Instead of going back to the spot where we'd entered Harcourt, we walked in the direction of the forest. The air was cool and smelled so much cleaner than the air in the regular world.

I led Nosedive down a short wooded trail that came out to a clearing where there was a pond and a large poplar tree that grew behind it. The ground was very wet and spongy.

"Is this quick sand?" he asked.

"Nope, just swampy ground." We carefully walked around the pond and sat down beneath the poplar tree.

"This is so Lord of the Rings/Led Zeppelin," he said, and I knew he was my soul mate.

"This is where my friends and I used to have our secret meetings," I explained.

"Nice."

"I figured this would be a good place for us to hang without any supervillains seeing us together."

"That's genius."

We sat and listened to the sounds of frogs, crickets, and a stream that gurgled several yards away. And then, out of the night came the sound of a telephone.

"What the fuck is that?" he asked.

"It's a tree frog."

"Some kind of cartoon tree frog?"

"Nope, just a tree frog. There's sometimes frogs near my house that sound the same way."

I looked up at the beautiful night sky and smelled the damp earth. Nosedive reached for my hand.

"I donno about that," I said, my heart racing. Respectfully, he pulled his hand away.

"We've already played patty cake," he said. "Besides, we held hands when we were running from Lucky and Bonkers."

"True." I reached for his hand and held it, my whole body shaking. "Just… I don't want you to expect something more and then get disappointed." My neck and cheeks felt hot. I felt like the tree frog was swimming in my stomach.

"That's fine!" said Nosedive. "The Dive lives in the moment."

I had to laugh at him referring to himself in the third person. Typical Nosedive.

"I like this," I admitted. "Even though I just met you and I probably shouldn't be leading you on. I think it would be wrong of me to date you."

"Why? Because you're a human and I'm a duck?"

"No. Because I don't think I ever want to have sex with anyone. I figure I should get that out of the way so you can go ahead and make up your mind about me now."

To my surprise, he affectionately tightened his grip on my hand. "Is it ok if I ask why?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to explain. I was afraid it would cause a rift between us. "It's a long story," I said.

"You weren't abused, were you? Because if you were, I'll find the bastard and kick his ass."

Nosedive and I were already sitting close, but I scooted even loser. "I was never abused," I explained. "But… I witnessed someone being abused when I was really young. It was terrible. I was only in first grade and I was at my friend's house…I thought I was walking into the bathroom, but…it wasn't. It was the bedroom. What I saw was sickening. Her poor mom…I don't even want to talk about it. Just know that it's kind of influenced the way I feel about men and sex. That man was a monster."

"I'm sorry you had to see that, especially at such a young age… I can understand why it affected you that way."

"Really? You don't think I'm some weird-ass prude?"

"No…"

I wanted to hug him so much at that moment. So I did. I squeezed him with all my might and then let go. "If I ever did work up the nerve to have sex with anyone, it would be you," I promised. "But I still probably won't. I don't like the way kids at school talk about sex. I don't think people can have sex without gender roles, and gender roles would turn me off. Even if they were reversed."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, if we do have sex, don't expect me to call you "daddy" or say things like, 'Put me in my place," or "show me who's boss!" And I don't think I'd want you to say those kinds of things to me. Some people love power dynamics, but I don't think I would. I hope you don't think I'm boring."

The kids at school, who were always interrogating me about my sexuality, would have asked "How do you know you don't like something if you've never tried it?" and then they would have called me a prude who would never get laid because I wasn't willing to change. But Nosedive didn't do that. Bless him, I could finally talk to someone about these things without getting maligned.

"Why would I want you to call me 'daddy'?" he asked. "I'm not your fuckin' dad. Humans are weird."

I laughed. "So you really don't mind how I am?"

"Not at all. I don't know anything about humans' sexual practices. If we ever do have sex, I'll let you teach me what you like and don't like. I won't judge you."

"So if we did have sex…would you have to have any macho, males-are-superior-feelings in order to be attracted to me? If I was as badass as you, would you still be into me or would your masculinity be threatened?"

"You are as badass as me," he said. "Badassitude isn't a zero-sum game. Two people can be equally as badass…but there aren't many people who are as badass as me, so that means you're pretty special."

"Awww." I was touched. Somehow he managed to be sweet and egotistical at the same time. I didn't understand it. Most humans with Nosedive sized egos were total jerks.

"So," he said. "I'm not going to pressure you into sex. I don't care if we wait forever. But I'm not gonna lie. I'm mega-horny right now."

I was at a loss for words.

"It's OK," he said, putting his hands up defensively. "We can wait as long as you want."

I smiled. I felt like a lake that had just burst through a dam. I'd been honest with Nosedive, so I could touch him all I wanted without feeling like I was leading him on. I wrapped my arms around him and began to feel some new and unusual feelings. I wasn't ready for sex, but I did want to start getting to know his body, which was so different than mine.

I eased my hand into his shirt and felt his feathers. They were soft just like I'd expected, but let me tell you, it was nothing like petting a duck at the state fair. He was almost like a human, just with feathers. He was sure nice to cuddle up to as the night grew chilly. And the sound of his heart beating was the sweetest sound in the world. I didn't want to let him go.

"Sorry I'm keeping you up all night this close to hockey season," I said.

"It's alright," he replied. "I wouldn't be asleep anyway."

Then I remembered I'd heard somewhere that he suffered from insomnia. I guess I really was a Nosedive Flashblade encyclopedia.

Soon the sun began peeking over the horizon. "I need to move around or I'm gonna fall asleep," I announced. "Some of my friends should be waking up around now. Wanna meet 'em?"

"Sure!" he replied happily. Things had definitely changed between us and I'd only met him the day before. As soon as we took off on our walk, we were holding hands. Of course, we had to work out the logistics, with him having one less finger than me. Ah, human/alien love!

The cool thing about Harcourt is that deciduous forests and jungles can exist within a few miles of each other. Nosedive's eyes were aglow when we found ourselves in a rainforest. But I knew exactly where we were. I walked to a bungalow-style treehouse and said "Hey dude!"

A striped lemur swung out by the tail. "Hey," I said. "I want you to meet Nosedive Flashblade, Star left wing for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim."

"Cool," said Tail. "I like hockey."

"I know who you are!" Nosedive exclaimed. "You're that dude! From the cartoon! You run around with a Dalmatian named Ewah."

"That's me alright! Tail the Terrific! The Marvelous Marsupial! Would you like a tour of the jungle?"

I could tell Nosedive wanted to say "yes," but he and Tail looked to me for an answer. I remembered that I had to get home so I could pretend I'd been in bed all night and then eat some pancakes.

"Soon," I said. "But for now, we've gotta go. I need to crawl in bed and pretend I've been asleep." My grandma was supposed to think I'd been at home in bed all night.

"Man," groaned Nosedive. "We've gotta come back."

"We will," I promised.

"Well, bye guys," said Tail, who started to leap farther into the jungle.

"Wait," Nosedive said. "I have one quick question."

Tail stopped in his tracks. "Yeah?"

"Do you know Bernie?"

"Bernie the Bear?"

"Yeah! That Bernie!"

"I know him," said Tail.

"So then he's really a bear. Right?"

"What else would he be? Of course he's a bear."

"Oh yeah! Wait till I tell Grin."

At that, the two of us left Harcourt. Before he went to my clubhouse/barn and I went to my room, we shared a long hug. We'd just met, but we didn't want to part. But it would be ok. We'd be together again soon, to work on our slip n' slide.


	9. Chapter 9

Don't Call Me Penelope Ch. 9

I snuck in back in my room through the window. I'd locked my bedroom door so that my grandmother wouldn't bebop in and see me gone. I collapsed onto the bed and it felt great, but I didn't fall asleep. I wasn't as tired as you'd expect me to be after staying out all night with Nosedive Flashblade and almost getting arrested by toon cops. I was missing Nosedive too bad to be tired.

I'd only been there about thirty minutes before my grandmother banged on the door and said, "Come on, girlfrien.' Get up. I'm making waffles."

"Five more minutes," I moaned, trying to sound groggy.

"Fine," she said. "The waffles will be done in about ten minutes."

Loki had slept at the barn with the other ducks, so I doubted think he knew about my little excursion with Dive. Dive had waited until everyone was asleep before sneaking out.

Only a matter of minutes, and I'd see Nosedive again.

Fuck it, I decided. I was too impatient. I went ahead and got up and sat at the table, waiting for my waffles.

"You slept in your clothes?" Grandma asked, concerned.

"Yeah, I was really tired. I just sorta passed out last night."

She seemed to buy it.

As soon as the waffles were done, I drenched them in syrup and scarfed them down. Then I chased 'em by guzzling a cup of sweet tea in under 30 seconds.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," I told Grandma. I dashed out of the house and ran up to the barn. When I opened the door, I found the whole team awake.

Nosedive ran to me with heaps of enthusiasm and asked if I was ready to work on the slip n' slide.

"Of course!" I replied. It was awkward seeing him after our little adventure. I wanted to touch him, but not with the others watching. I prayed he wouldn't spring any public displays of affection on me. But this is Nosedive. Everything about him has to be over the top, so he pulled me into a big bear hug.

"You two sure are getting close," Loki commented, startling me. The little dog was great at sneaking up on people.

"No," I said. "Um…"

"I'm just really hyper for a guy who averages three hours of sleep a night," said Nosedive. "I'm ready to build Slidezilla!"

"You guys don't have long," said Wildwing. "We need to go back to Anaheim and check the Raptor for portal blueprints."

"Relax, bro," said Nosedive. "We can have it done in no time."

I doubted he was right about that, but I went along with it. The two of us headed outside, with Phil also pushing through the door. "Excuse me," said Phil. "I have to do number two." He went towards the woods.

While Phil was doing that, Nosedive and I went to the highest point of the hill and began unrolling the plastic stuff that Moka had bought for us. That was the easy part. In a few minutes, we had it trailing down the hill, staked to the ground at the top so it wouldn't move.

"I guess now all I need to do is connect the hoses," I said. "Wait right there."

Right as I was about to leave, I heard the sound of Phil screaming. "AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Nosedive and I went toward the sound and saw Phil with his pants around his ankles being chased out of the woods by an incredibly large emu. We laughed hysterically at Phil's misfortune.

"Giant birds'll be the death of me!" screamed Phil. "This emu must me in cahoots with you ducks!" He ran in the barn and slammed the door behind him.

"I just saw more Phil than I ever wanted to see," I told Nosedive.

"Tell me about it. Where did that come from, anyway?"

"There's an emu farm in the next hollow. The emus are always getting loose."

Soon the emu began approaching us.

"I'm not afraid of it," said Nosedive.

"Well, unlike Phil, we have our pants on."

The emu came and started pecking us and trying to eat Nosedive's hair.

"GAH!" screamed Nosedive, "Nuh uh! You do NOT mess with the flow." He shoved the emu away.

"It thinks you're sexy!"

"Sorry," he told the emu. "The Dive's no longer on the market." After that, the emu went to me and started trying to eat my hair.

"She's with me,"' said Nosedive, pulling me to him. But it didn't stop the emu.

"I'm going to get those hoses," I said, shoving the emu.

"Right, well, I'll be in the barn till this guy fucks off."

He went in the barn and I growled in the emu's face. Not a death metal growl, but a wicked oldschool growl that sent it running into the woods. "That's right!" I said. "Run in fear!"

I ran to the house and gathered all of our hoses plus the one Moka donated.

Unfortunately, one hose was stripped, so I ended up with four hoses in all. They weren't nearly long enough. They barely stretched to the middle of the garden.

I ran back up to the barn and found Nosedive. "Not enough hoses," I said.

"Bummer."

"It's alright. You'll be visiting me again, won't you?"

"Frickin' A, beautiful!"

I just about melted. I thought only my mom considered me beautiful.

"Then we'll have plenty of chances to finish," I said. For someone who was supposed to be looking for a way to get back to his planet, he sure had been talking like he wanted to be a permanent fixture in my life. I couldn't wipe the stupid grin off my face.

Soon, we went to the barn and told the others to come see our masterpiece.

"I can only look for a minute" said Loki. "I have things to attend to."

"What kind of things?"

"Things."

The ducks and Phil followed us and looked at our giant strip of plastic that flowed down the hill.

"That's not a slip n' slide," said Mallory. "You need water for a slip n' slide!"

"We're workin' on it!" I said. "We'll have to get more hoses, plus some baby oil to make it slippery."

"No baby oil," said Nosedive. "I don't want that stuff in my feathers."

"Not to mention," Added Tanya, "baby oil makes your body retain toxins."

"Don't tell her that," said Loki. "She's already paranoid!"

"It's ok," I said. "We can use something else."

"Well, kids," said Loki. "It looks good. I'm gonna go take care of business. I'll be back soon."

"Can we come?" I asked.

"I don't want to drag you into this, Fang."

"Oh come on! I've faced danger before. I scared away the Terminator Emu!"

"Yeah," said Dive. "I'm no stranger to danger either. Let us come with."

"No," Loki insisted.

"Fine," I said. "I guess I could always take Dive to meet Sir Lucian."

"…OK," said Loki. "You two have fun."

Loki's POV

The last thing I wanted Fang and Nosedive to do was go visit Sir Lucian, because that's where I was headed! But I didn't want them to know that, so I pretended to be ok with their decision. If I wanted to talk to Lucian alone, I would just have to get to the library before they did. And that wouldn't be a problem. I walk a lot faster than they do!

They'd probably at least make several stops along the way, quite possibly to "get busy." Fang can say what she wants about not having sexual feelings, but I when it comes to Nosedive she isn't fooling anybody. I'd been following them during their little excursion (what can I say? The dog in me made me a little overprotective!) and I'd heard their sex talk. All I can say is, Nosedive better be good to my human.

Fang's POV

Loki charged down the road like he was late for a meeting of some kind. Soon he disappeared into the horizon. "There's no point in trying to keep up with him," I said as we meandered in the direction of the library.

"I donno," said Nosedive. "After all, we escaped the cops last night."

"Yeah, two idiot cops." I looked back on our adventure the night before. "I'm not crazy about the fact that you're faster than me." I didn't want a guy who was better than me at everything. Oh, well, I could still sing as well as he could. I hoped. There was no way in the worlds I could ever play hockey.

"I'm the fastest player on the team," he said. "It's my job. Me and Mal are the fast ones who get past the defense, Tanya and Grin are kinda slow but they're fast enough to protect Wildwing. And Duke just skates around thinking he's hot shit."

I laughed. "L'Orange is good, but he's a little overrated." I could tell it tickled Nosedive to hear me say that.

"So," I asked him, "If I were faster than you would you still be attracted to me?"

"Oh, yeah, I'd still be attracted to you. But I don't think you could get faster than me. Especially on skates. Not without doing drills every morning. Even then. We're talking about my claim to fame here."

"I can't even skate."

"I could show you."

"I'd bust my ass!"

"That's part of learning. When you bust your ass, I promise not to laugh."

"Yeah right! There's nothing funnier than someone busting their ass."

"Nah…I'd laugh at Phil or one of my bandmates busting their ass, but I wouldn't laugh at you."

"Good. In that case, then sure, you can try to teach me to skate. But I'd rather know how to fight. I hate being so fucking small. It makes me feel weak."

"You're not weak," he said. "You actually have some visible muscle for a human chick."

"Really?" Most people complimented me on my hair or how so-called dainty I looked. It felt nice to have someone actually say I look strong. "I don't work out a whole lot," I explained "I'm just active. This probably comes from rafting with my mom and climbing trees. But I still feel weak. Look at me! I'm so damn small! And you're a guy so you probably like how helpless I look."

"Dude no, you're sexy as fuck, but I don't think you look helpless. For another I know exactly how you feel. I'm not a really big guy and I get sick of people underestimating me. But being small doesn't make you weak. Look at Mallory. She's a lot smaller than Tanya. Tanya actually has some beef to her. But Mal could beat Tanya in a fight easily simply because she knows what she's doing."

"Maybe I should take martial arts lessons from Mallory."

"If you want to memorize a bunch of complicated forms and stuff! But you don't have to know all that fancy shit. I can show you some tricks some time. I fight big assholes all the time."

I smiled. In all honesty, I'd probably take lessons from both of them (if they had the time to teach me!), but I doubted if I'd be able to memorize all the stuff Mallory would try to teach me. I'd tried to take martial arts classes before, and I'd had the coordination and strength but I hadn't been able to remember all those damn forms once I had to get home and practice by myself.

"The thing you need to know is," he explained, "you have to be quicker than them. And hit them first. In hockey, I never hit the other guy first because we don't really approve of that on Puckworld. But if someone has me backed in a corner trying to kill me, you bet I hit them first 'cause 9 times out of 10 they're bigger than me."

"That's what I try to do too," I explained. "But now that I'm not a kid anymore I could go to jail for throwing the first punch."

"Not if you can prove they were threatening you. Just tell the cops you were scared 'cause some big asshole was coming after you."

"I hope you're right about that."

We stopped for a moment so he could show me some fighting moves (mostly simple stuff like throwing a solid punch and standing so that I don't lose my alance). Apparently, the punching technique my grandmother had taught me was wrong. I was supposed to have my thumb OUTSIDE of my fist. Otherwise I could very easily break my thumb!

I was surprisingly comfortable learning these things from Nosedive. It was amazing: normally I was embarrassed by working on new things with others around. But he touched me a lot while showing me how to hold my hand and how to jab. I was addicted to the touching. Needless to say, we took our time in getting to the library.


	10. Chapter 10

Loki's POV

I was correct in my prediction that I would arrive at the library before Fang and Nosedive. I thanked Varazelka that he most likely could not get her pregnant.

I wasn't tall enough to open the door to the library. Thankfully, Lucian heard my howling and let me in.

"Greetings," said the librarian.

"Greetings," I said. "How have you been?"

"I've been reading up on ancient religions of Europe, although there is little information on the subject that I've not already encountered. I'd like to expand my knowledge on mystical artifacts. How about you dear friend?"

"I've come with some questions that you might be able to answer, since you know about the portal from this world to Harcourt."

"Oh?"

"I was wondering if you knew about any other portals."

"Yes, yes, come sit and we can discuss this."

We went to the long table at the back of the library that was almost always empty.

"Would you like some coffee?" he asked as I hopped up into a chair.

"I don't suppose you have any scotch…"

"Not at the moment."

"Then coffee will do, thank you much Sir Lucian."

Lucian fixed me a bowl of coffee and sat it on the floor, so I jumped down from my seat and took a sniff. The steam was coming off of it and I decided I'd best let it cool before lapping any up.

Lucian sat at the seat nearest me. "So, you want to know about portals."

"Yes. How are some ways that one might detect a naturally occurring portal?"

"Sometimes they are rather undetectable. Usually the only indication of one is a sort of shimmery, rippling effect in the air. Of course, you might also be lucky enough to see a bird or a squirrel disappear into a portal and then you'd know it's there."

"I see. Well do you think perhaps one could control where the portal takes them?"

"With naturally occurring portals, no. Most of the naturally occurring portals only take you to places near or parallel to this dimension. Harcourt, for example, is a dimension that lies above our own. Below us lies a universe where Earth is still in the middle ages. Of course, there are also portals that can take you to places such as the underworld or the afterlife, but those are simply other planes of existence that overlap with ours."

"So how would one go about obtaining a portal that could take them to another planet that's likely to be several universes over from this one?"

"Why, then you would either need a particular type of technology or magic that could take you to the universe of your choice. I hear that there is a portal at CERN in Switzerland."

I nodded. "I have heard that too, but it is just a rumor. And Switzerland is far away. How about the magically controlled sort of portal?"

"I suppose, for one of those, you'd have to go to a wizard."

"Like who?"

"Well, these is always Aldo."

"Who is that?" I asked, wondering if he was the wizard that had sent me to Earth so many years ago.

"Aldo, Pandora's advisor. Crotchety old fellow. Surely you know who I'm referring to."

I realized he probably was the same wizard who had sent me here, but I wasn't sure. "I might be casually acquainted with him, but I can't recall."

"I see. Well, he is quite antisocial. He lives at the highest tower of Pandora's castle, but he is usually out exploring."

"Thank you. That will be useful."

"Old Aldo," mused Lucian. "That old kook. If you see him you should ask him for some recipes. He truly is quite a cook. But he only entertains guests on occasion."

Right around that time is when I heard Fang and Nosedive come in. Quickly, I hid under the table. I heard Fang and Nosedive come back towards the table, because it Fang was used to talking with Lucian there.

"Hey Lucian!" I heard her say. "I want you to meet a friend of mine."

"Nosedive Flashblade," said Lucian.

"Nah," said Nosedive sarcastically. "I'm actually a Reptilian, one of those shape-shifting lizards related to the Saurians who have come to unravel the fabric of American society."

"You're definitely Nosedive," said Lucian.

I realized that they might see the bowl of coffee on the floor, and I didn't want Fang to know about this. The last thing I wanted was for her to get involved in the search for the portal. She just wasn't ready. Like I said before, I'd followed her and Nosedive on their little adventure in Harcourt and they hadn't even known I was tailing them. Fang was not ready to be a spy.

"Would you like some coffee?" I heard Lucian ask the two teens.

"Sure," said Fang. Nosedive said he only liked coffee with lots of sugar and creamer in it.

While Lucian went to get coffee, I watched Fang and Nosedive's feet from under the table. The moment they went to look at the myriad books on the shelves, I darted out and pulled the coffee bowl under the table. The operation wasn't as quiet as I would have liked.

"What was that?" Dive asked.

"Ghosts, probably," said Fang.

"Dude."

"Or maybe rats."

"Master Splinter!"

Perhaps I was getting a little rusty. A spy cannot afford to get rusty. I resolved to sharpen my skills before going on any big missions for the ducks.

Fang's POV

Sometime after we heard the ghost, Lucian returned with some strong coffee for me and a cup of extremely sweet coffee for Nosedive.

"Lucian's the coolest librarian ever, He knows everything."

"Cool," said Dive. "Ya got any comic books?"

"No," said Lucian, "but I do have a collection you would never believe. I have a way of finding rare and controversial books."

"He has plenty of sci-fi and fantasy, too," I assured Nosedive.

"Ah," said Lucian mysteriously. "But what's real and what's fantasy is in the eye of the beholder. Many things are more than they appear."

"I know, man," said Dive. "It's like the awesome shit we read in fairy tales and fantasy. It just might exist somewhere." I gave him a look. "Oritmightnot," he added quickly.

Lucian raised an eyebrow. "You told him?"

Loki's POV

At this point I rolled my eyes. If she was ever going to be a spy, she had a lot to learn!

Fang's POV

I looked around nervously. "Well yeah, I told him. I mean, he's one of us. He's seventeen and he still has his imagination. He reads comic books all the time. He's not like the stuck-up jerks at school who think they're too old or too cool for such things."

"Your school sounds mega lame," said Nosedive.

"It is. Anyway, Lucian, Nosedive is one of us. We can trust him (unspoken: because he's pretty! Also because he really does care about the same things…and he's pretty!). I mean, I guess I should tell you, I showed him Harcourt. But hey! There's a bright side to it! The more people who believe in Harcourt, the stronger its citizens become."

Lucian said, "Yes, well, normally I think you should have a meeting with the Order before just telling someone about Harcourt…but I think you are a pretty good judge of character with all you've been through. If you trust him, I trust him."

"Good," I said, wiping the nervous sweat off of my brow.

"But," said Lucian, "Since Nosedive is already in on so many secrets, I believe it is only appropriate if he becomes a probationary member of the Order."

"Order?" said Dive. "Cooela! Who doesn't want to be in a secret society?"

"You must take this seriously," said Sir Lucian.

"I will," said Nosedive. "I'd love to help you if it means stopping those lamebrains who are trying to close down the comic shops and turn us all into braindead slaves."

"Then follow me," said Sir Lucian.

Lucian proceeded to lead down two flights of stairs to the lowest part of the main library. Then, at the very back of the room he unlocked a door and revealed a dark void.

"This is where I keep banned books and rare artifacts," said Lucian. He flipped on a light switch and we saw yet another flight of stairs. As we descended, the air began to feel damp, almost as if we were in a cave. There were even cave crickets on the stone walls.

"Spider!" screeched Nosedive as he pulled puck launcher and aimed at the wall.

"Oh, no, you don't!" I said. "You wanna make this whole building collapse on us?" I tried not to laugh at the idea of a badass hockey player being deathly afraid of spiders.

"I wasn't gonna shoot an explosive one!" he said.

"Still."

"Besides," said Lucian. "the spiders mean no harm. Now, if you see a black widow or a brown recluse, then by all means kill it."

Eventually we came to a room with a table in the middle. The walls were lined with treasure chests, some air tight to protect the books inside from the damp air.

"This is where the Order conducts business," said Lucian.

Are you gonna blindfold me and make me drink blood out of a skull and shit?" asked Nosedive.

"Nothing that exciting," said Lucian. "I simply want you to sign this document promising that if you become a member of the Order you will take your knighthood seriously and that you won't tell anyone you about Harcourt or the Order unless you run it by us first." Lucian gave me a look, and then continued explaining things to Dive. "If you go through your yearlong probationary period, we will take you to Queen Pandora and she will knight you officially."

"Nice!"

"I didn't need to wait a year to be knighted," I bragged. "But that's 'cause I fulfilled a prophecy."

He stuck his tongue out at me - I hadn't known ducks were capable of doing that! - and asked for the document.

Lucian opened up one of the treasure chests and produced a quill pen, a tub of ink, and a piece of ancient-looking parchment.

"You will sign here," he instructed. He dabbed the pen in ink and handed it to Dive, who then signed the paper.

"Next," said Lucian, "You will add a dab of your blood."

Nosedive was all into this. He pulled out a pocketknife and cut himself on the underside of his hand, where his feathers were short and not quite as thick. Without hesitation, he added a dab of blood to the document.

"Now," said Lucian, "Fang gets to sign here as a witness, and lastly, I'll sign as senior knight."

So Lucian and I signed our parts of the document and Nosedive asked, "Now what? You know, if you guys have regular meetings, I can't be at all of 'em. When we find a portal, I'm going back to my planet. I'll come back to visit though."

"That's fine," said Lucian. "Your main jobs will be guarding the secret of Harcourt and reporting to us anything that you think might put Harcourt in danger."

"I think I can do that."

"Good, because if you fail, the consequences are not pretty."


	11. Chapter 11

Don't Call me Penelope 11: Ducks Can Actually Do That

Nosedive and I were walking back to my house from the library, hoping we weren't being watched by anyone important, when I decided to ask him a question that had been weighing on my mind.

"So, when you go back to Puckworld, what if you meet somebody? Some sexy duck, like Lucretia?"

"All she had was a body. You have the whole package."

"Not to mention she was a TRAITOR!"

"Oh, yeah, that too."

"I know about young dudes and their hormones."

"Nobody gets this duck's hormones pumpin' like you!"

"Yes, that's precisely the problem. I don't have sex. You'll find someone on Puckworld who'll put out. And I refuse to be like some celebrity girlfriends and say 'give it the ol' college try as long as you call her by my name.'"

"Nah. I promise. I won't."

"So you'll call her by her own name."

` He stopped walking and looked me in the eye. "I won't cheat on you at all. I promise."

Suddenly I felt bad for assuming he would cheat on me. I hoped he would be able to cope with my insecurities and neurotic behavior. Then I realized something: He wouldn't have used the word "cheat" if he didn't consider us an item. A big, silly smile spread across my face. Things were certainly moving fast, and I didn't care.

"So that means we're an item?"

"Well, yeah, I thought that's what last night's conversation was about."

"Oh. Well, that's good," I said awkwardly. "I didn't know for sure. Now I see why kids at school ask that lame 'will you be my girlfriend or boyfriend' question in order to make shit official. With their paper airplanes and stuff. But I always thought that would be a dumb thing to do since adults don't say, 'Will you be my boyfriend?' or whatever. They just know. Things just fall into place. And now I'm rambling. So… how are we gonna make this work? Won't you be on your planet for weeks at a time once Loki finds away for you guys to get there?"

Nosedive was silent, which was unlike him. It terrified me. I just knew deep down that I would lose him.

Finally, he said, "Mallory and Tanya definitely want to move back for good. But I'm not sure about Wildwing. He hasn't made up his mind. If he moves, he'll want me to come with him."

"…Oh."

"Yeah, but if we move, you can always come with me. Don't you wanna get out of this place? This planet is totally, cosmically fucked. I don't see why any female – or even a dude - would want to stay here."

"You have a point." It was so nice to have a guy who actually understood what was wrong with this planet. But I couldn't move.

"I can't leave my Mom," I said. "She's all I've had for so long. And I'm all she's got. I mean, she has other relatives, and they love us, but they all think we're weird. Mom's one of the only other adults besides Lucian who knows about Harcourt. She needs me."

"Then you should understand. Wildwing needs me. None of the others were in the camps with him. I'm the only one who knows everything he went through."

For a split second, I was jealous of Wildwing. But I realized that he just might be Nosedive's only living relative.

"Your parents," I asked. "Are they…?"

"I don't know. We were separated from them in the camps."

I nodded. If I were in his shoes, I would want to go home and find my parents too. Trying to stop him would be selfish.

I put my arm around him as we walked and tried to memorize everything about him, just in case he left and never came back. They say to be nonchalant and not let the person you want know just how bad you want them, but I can't do that. I've always worn my heart on my sleeve.

"Are you sure you'll be back to visit me?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound whiny. "You really think we can make this work?"

"I promise." He squeezed me tightly and I tried not to get emotional. I needed him desperately. He was the one guy in all of existence that I knew wasn't like the others.

When we got closer to my driveway, we stopped and sat under a tree. I was beginning to feel a little bit better.

"It's hot out here," I commented.

"Not as hot as Anaheim!" said Nosedive. "That place is miserable hot."

"I thought you guys liked the weather there."

"Not all of us. Just Mallory 'cause she's weird." He took his shirt off. "We burn up here. I wish we could have at least landed in Canada."

It was the first time I'd ever seen him with his shirt off and I couldn't stop gaping like an idiot. I was literally drooling over a feathery alien duck. I scooted close and laid my head on his chest and caressed him. The closer to his pants, the softer his feathers were.

He put an arm around me and held me tightly. I wanted to stay like that forever. I imagined how great it would be to cuddle him this way every night for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to savor the moment. Nosedive got a call on his communicator.

"It's probably Wingster," he said, flipping open his comm. "Hey bro!"

"Hey, baby bro," said Wildwing. "Where are you? We need to get back to Anaheim and check the Raptor for portal blueprints."

Nosedive and I exchanged sad glances. He sighed. "I'll be right there…"

"How far away are you?"

"Just a few minutes."

"OK, see you soon."

It figured that Nosedive's teammates would be wanting him right when we were having a moment.

"I guess we gotta go," he said reluctantly.

I groaned. We took the trail through the woods that led to the barn, walking as slowly as possible. When we got there, Loki had already returned from whatever adventure he'd gone on and was sitting around with the other ducks and Phil.

"You ready to go, baby bro?" asked Wildwing.

"I guess so."

"It was nice meeting you all," I told them. "Awesome, actually. By the way, Mallory, do you think you could teach me some self-defense some time?"

"Sure," she said. "If I get any free time before going to Peeravara. I wouldn't do it for just anybody, but I like you. You're a tough little human."

I was beaming. "Thanks, Mal. You and Tanya are the bomb!" I said goodbye to the team as they all migrated out of the barn.

Nosedive lingered outside after the rest of the ducks boarded the Aerowing. He held me tightly and I looked around hoping that Loki wasn't watching. "I'll miss you so much," I told him. "You're not like anyone else I've ever met. You're amazing."

"I'll come back and see you," he assured me. "Even if there's a blueprint in the Raptor and Loki ends up not having to break into Los Alamos, we'll come back and visit you. Loki wants us to see him get turned into a shapeshifter anyway."

"What about after that?"

"You know I can't stay away from you."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Hurry it up!" yelled Mallory from the ship.

"I'll miss you so much," I said.

"I don't wanna leave," said Nosedive, sounding every bit as whiny as I had sounded earlier.

"Hurry it UP!" barked Mallory.

I stood on my tiptoes (damn I HATE being short) and gave Nosedive a little kiss on the tip of the bill. Then the unexpected happened: He slipped his tongue in my mouth and I tried to ignore the stirring in my loins. They might not be able to kiss the same way as humans, but I still consider that my first kiss and I'll remember it forever.

"Kerfka dol Wivek Warkis!" howled Mallory, sounding very much like a drill sergeant. By the look on Nosedive's face, she'd just said something pretty offensive.

"Fuck," said Nosedive. "I better go, sweetie. Bye."

"Bye." I gave him one more quick peck.

"I'll miss you."

I watched him walk to the Aerowing. My, he had a nice ass and a superb pair of legs. And he was so sweet! I was going to be miserable until I saw him again.

Loki walked up beside me and I jumped.

"You didn't see all that did you?"

"See all what?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Don't worry," said Loki. "He'll be back. He's crazy about you."

"Well, we're not a couple or anything," I lied.

"Of course not," said Loki with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"No, really!"

We walked back to the house and I collapsed miserably on my bed. I didn't even listen to Blades N' Flowers that night. I slept in silence and dreamt of Nosedive.


	12. Chapter 12

Don't Call me Penelope 12

The next day, I felt like crap. Not just because I missed Nosedive, but because it was Monday. Back to the hellhole.

As I got dressed for school, I noticed something sitting among my countless drawings, stories, and lyrics that sat on the bedside table. It was the note from Swayne, the school counselor, asking my mom to enroll me in that class for weird kids. I hadn't shown it to my mom because she blamed herself for my being weird. Don't get me wrong, she liked the way I was. She loved her weird daughter. But she knew that the world was cruel to weird people and she often thought that I would be a happier person if she'd enrolled me in ballet classes, bought me tea sets, and raised me to be a perfectly "normal" girl. Girls who wear black, watch hockey, talk in their regular voice and like to research bats get made fun of mercilessly.

What Mom wouldn't understand is that I wanted to take the class for weird kids. I was dying to know just what kind of brainwashing Swayne would be trying to force upon us misfit teens. My plan had been to forge Mom's signature and sign up for the class without her knowing, but I'd forgotten to do so with all the excitement of meeting the Mighty Ducks.

I decided to go ahead and do it. I signed the note, put it in an envelope, slapped a stamp on it and addressed it to Swayne. I also made sure to write down her address in a notebook because that was valuable info (even if, perhaps, it wasn't her house address). Then, when I went down my driveway to meet the bus, I stuck the letter in the mailbox and put the flag up.

On the bus, I decided to try and catch a little more sleep. I curled up in the seat with my head leaning against the window and closed my eyes.

Then, I felt someone sit down beside me. It couldn't be Doom, since we couldn't possibly be at her house yet, so I just kept my eyes closed and ignored the person.

"Hi," said the person. It was a male with a rather high, youthful voice. I didn't respond, but he continued talking.

"My dog has arthritis," he said. "So my mom gave it some possum oil. Have you ever used possum oil for pain?"

Again, I ignored him.

"You can get possum oil real cheap at Old Farm Supply," said the kid. "They also have chickens for sale. And they come with a free bag of chicken feed, but after the first time you buy it, you have to pay for it. Do you watch Survivor?"

"I'm trying to sleep," I grumbled. I was too tired to be grateful for the fact that a kid was talking to me without being a hateful asshole.

"I'll let you sleep," said the kid. But thirty seconds later, he was talking again. "My little sister got gum in her hair and Mom had to cut it out and now she has a mini Mohawk sticking up on top of her head."

"I don't care," I said. I opened my eyes to see that the kids was maybe 1 years old with short blond hair and a body shaped like a pear. I closed my eyes again.

"Have you ever gotten gum stuck in your hair?'

I growled a beastly growl.

"By the way," said the kid, "My name is Tom."

"Ugggggh! I don't CARE!"

Right about then, some kid came and said, "Hey Tom! Why are you talking to the weird bitch? Do you want to fuck her?"

"Ewwww no!" said Tom, and finally, thankfully, he moved to another seat and left me well alone. Soon we were at Doom's house and she took her normal seat beside me.

"Dude!" I told her trying my best to whisper, "Guess what!"

"What?"

I lowered my voice even more, but I couldn't hide my excitement, "I met the Mighty Ducks."

"The Mighty Ducks?"

"Shhh! We have to keep it a secret."

"My mom and dad are always arguing about whether or not the Mighty Ducks are really aliens," said Doom. "And my brother always turns on the cartoon show when I'd rather be watching Sonic…"

"Don't you like the Mighty Ducks? You know they're my favorite team."

"Eh, your mom got me into Detroit. Sergei's my favorite."

"He is pretty cool," I said. "But Mallory, Tanya, and Nosedive are the best players in the league. Nosedive scored 72 goals last season. That's more than Brett Hull even. There's not many players who score over 70 goals in a season."

"He's also really annoying."

"You really think so? Because I met him and I think he's a really nice guy. He's awesome! He likes all the stuff we like."

"He also screams a lot and talks about himself in the third person."

"Yeah, because he's awesome! I want you to meet him and then you'll know." I wanted to express how amazing Nosedive was without sounding like I was majorly into him, but I was probably failing miserably at that.

"It would be interesting," she said "Out of all the Ducks, I prefer L'Orange."

"He's good," I conceded, "but he's not as impressive as Nosedive and Mallory,"

Soon, we were at the foreboding building known as Frieda Vent Fan High School. We got off the bus in single file and went to the gym to wait for the bell to ring.

"Hey," said Slace, who sat on the bleachers next to Doom and me. "You're grinning awfully wide."

"I am?" I hadn't noticed that I'd drifted into a daydream about Nosedive until Slace snapped me out of it.

"That looks like a 'just got laid' smile."

"Well, it's not."

"Is it a 'met a guy' smile?"

"Nope."

"What about a 'met a girl' smile?"

"It's none of the above," I said. "I guess I'm just happy 'cause I'm getting used to this cesspool."

When the bell rang, I went to the bathroom. That's why I was usually late for class. Every morning, I had to piss like a Russian Race Horse and the bathroom was always packed full of girls putting on makeup and doing drugs, so it was hard to get to a bathroom stall in a timely fashion.

After I went to the bathroom, I got my biology book out of my locker (I remembered! Booyah!), went to Mrs. Gere's class, and took my seat next to Doom. Then Mrs. Swayne walked in the door. She began pacing around with her hands behind her back, leaning forward and saying nothing. Ooooh, suspense!

Finally, she opened her mouth. "Good morning, children."

"We're not children," Doom corrected. "We're teenagers!"

Swayne leaned in towards Doom. "Well, you have acted like children." Then she stepped back and stood at the center of the board so that everyone had an equal view of her. "You have acted like dimwitted, amoral children who do not know right from wrong. One of you more than the others. I suspect it was you." She glared at Doom. "Or you." She glared at me. "You know very well what you did. If you come clean now, I'll let you off easily."

Uh oh. Swayne must have realized her precious brainwashing book was missing, and she was dangerously close to figuring out I was the one who stole it. Worse yet, she seemed to think Doom was in on it, which was unfair. I had been the sole thief. I didn't want Doom to get in trouble for what I did.

Swayne's eyes swept across the room. Nobody said a word.

"Not wanting to talk, hmmm?" said Swayne. She pulled the stuffed muslin bunny out from behind her back. "Maybe you'd rather tell the BUNNY!"

Laughter erupted in the classroom.

"Oh? You don't take this seriously? Well, then, here's the deal. If nobody comes clean by tomorrow, this whole class will be punished. I will come to an agreement with your teacher. Your grades may be affected. You may lose field day. You may even get suspended! Every single one of you. Have a good day." She walked out of the classroom.

"You heard her," said Mrs. Gere. "Whoever DID IT needs to come CLEAN! Now, time for BIOLOGY."

I had to think of something fast, or we would all be in deep shit. I contemplated covertly returning the book to Swayne. You know, slipping in her office and leaving it on her desk for her to find. But quite frankly, I didn't want a brainwashing book in Swayne's hands. Plus, it had valuable information within its pages.

There had to be another solution. Maybe I'd just have to ask for Loki's advice when I got home. He was a spy, after all. Or maybe, I could come up with a plan all on my own.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I don't own Bonkers, Lucky or Scott Ian! Also, there are mentions of drugs, but I am in no way advocating drug use.

When I got home, I said "hi" to Loki and retrieved from my room the crumpled-up hate note that Marcus had thrown at me. "Put on makeup, you ugly bitch."

I would put that note to good use. I got a pen and pad from the top of the microwave and started walking out the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Loki.

"You're not the only one who can keep secrets," I said.

"Ah, I bet you're gonna write love letters to Nosedive."

"No! If you absolutely MUST know, I'm going to the barn. You can come if you want."

Loki followed me to the barn, my base of operations, where I sat at a table and plopped down my stuff. I uncrinkled the note from Marcus as best I could and began practicing forging his handwriting. "Swayne's figured out it was either me or Doom who took her book." I told Loki "But I saw Marcus Small leaving her office too, not long ago. He'd make the perfect culprit, so I'm going to frame him."

"How are you going to do that?" asked Loki.

"Well," I explained to my dog, "Whenever Mrs. Gere sees a paper wad on the floor, she picks it up and looks at it and if there's handwriting, she figures out whose it is by comparing the handwriting on it to the handwriting on assignments turned in by the class. So I'm going to forge a note from Marcus to his best friend Danny Short saying something to the effect of, 'Dude! Guess what! I found a brainwashing book! Now we can brainwash our parents into getting us new dirt bikes! Come to my house later and I'll show you!"

"Well," said Loki. "I'm impressed. Mind if I give you a little constructive criticism?"

"What's that?" I hated constructive criticism.

"When you're lying, it's best not to go into too much detail because then you seem like you're TRYING to construct an elaborate lie. So leave out the dirt bike part. It's like you're trying too hard to imitate Marcus. Just say 'Dude I found a book about brainwashing! Come over later and I'll show you.'"

"If that's what you think I should do, then that's what I'll do."

"I'm impressed with your thinking. But you still have some training to do if you want to be a spy."

"Wildwing said I couldn't be a spy."

"I know. But that's not what Nosedive said. I heard your conversation. You really need to work on knowing when you're being tailed."

"So you heard our sex talk!"

"Yep."

I was so embarrassed. "Forget everything you heard," I said. "By the way, if you were there when Lucky and Bonkers were after us, why didn't you intervene?"

"I was studying your evasion skills. No worries. If Lucky and Bonkers ever arrest you, I'll be more than capable of breaking you out of jail."

At that, I decided the conversation was over and I continued practicing my forgery. My mom had been an expert at forging report cards when she was my age, but I hadn't inherited her skill. My handwriting always looked like that of a crazy person (luckily Swayne had never seen my mom's handwriting, or she would know that the signature on that enrollment paper was not Mom's).

By the time the sun started going down, I still didn't feel like I had Marcus's handwriting down. After all, the words "put on makeup, you ugly bitch" only contain 17 letters out of a 26-letter alphabet. On the letters not shown, I had to guess what Marcus's handwriting looked like. At some point I went to the house, ate dinner, and went back up to the barn with a radio so I could hear classic rock while practicing.

Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Nicks helped me get into a little bit of a better flow. I listened to all these old greats until late into the night, even though I had school the next day.

The music is probably why I didn't hear the Aerowing land.

Loki heard. He slipped out under the barn door and returned minutes later with the Ducks plus Thrash and Mookie and minus Phil.

"Nosedive!" I exclaimed as I jumped up. He gave me a big bear hug and said, "I've missed you so much!"

"You just saw her yesterday," said Mallory.

"Dive, Dude," said Thrash, who sounded damn near exactly like he did in the cartoon. "She really IS a babe."

"You'll have to excuse Thrash," said Mookie.

"I wanted you to meet my best friends," said Nosedive, "so, at the very last minute, I talked them into calling in sick and coming with me. Their boss thinks they have the flu."

"Bird flu," said Thrash.

"As interesting as all that is," said Wildwing, "the reason we came here was to bring bad news, and to give Silverwing a ride to Los Alamos."

"What's the bad news?" I inquired.

"The Raptor is missing. We went to the spot where it plummeted into the ocean and it's not there."

"FUCK!"

"This isn't good," said Loki. "But I can't go to Los Alamos yet. I'm still researching it."

"You can always come research it on Drake One," offered Tanya.

"I may take you up on that offer," said Loki. "But I'd like to be turned into a shifter first. The full moon is in a few days. Do you think you could stay until the ceremony so you can be there when I become a duck again?"

"YEAH!" said Nosedive, looking at me. "We'll stay."

"At least for the night," said Wildwing. "We're tired from all this travelling."

I was elated. More Nosedive time!

"But we need to find Dragaunus," said Mallory. "Apparently, he's not dead after all."

"But who knows how long the Raptor has been missing?" said Tanya. "Dragaunus might not even be on this planet now. If he was, we probably would have heard something."

"What if he's on …Puckworld?" asked Nosedive.

"Let's hope not," said Duke.

"Perhaps karma finally caught up with him," Grin suggested.

"Yeah," I said. "He might be dead somewhere besides the bottom of the ocean, but still dead. Or maybe he did die at the bottom of the ocean and his body and ship were taken by UFOlogists."

"If only we could be that lucky," said Mallory.

"Whatever the case," I told them, "I'm glad you're staying here a while! I want my friend Doom to meet you! Maybe she can ride home from school with me tomorrow!"

"Is she hot?" asked Thrash. Mookie elbowed him.

"Like, women are more than their looks, dingus." said Mook. I liked her already.

"Tell that to hockey fans," said Mallory.

"So, what are you into?" Nosedive asked me.

"Oh, just working on something," I explained. We walked over to the table where I'd been practicing my forgery. Nosedive picked up the original note from Marcus and read it silently.

"It's a hate note," I explained. "It's not the first I've ever gotten and it probably won't be the last."

"Well, this guy needs his vision checked!" he said. "You're gorgeous. That little rat better hope I never meet him."

I smiled. "That little rat is about to get in a lot of trouble." I rubbed my hands together maniacally. "I'll explain later."

"I don't understand why they give you so much grief," said Nosedive. "You're the coolest human ever."

"Heh. Ironically it's mainly the so-called rockers who give me grief. Marcus and his friends say I can't be a rock n' roller cause I'm into animal rights and equality and shit."

"Those guys are just posers!" said Nosedive. "They probably just listen to rock and metal so everyone will think they're badasses."

"And I bet the only thing they can play on guitar is that same riff from Smoke on the Water," Thrash added.

"How did you know?"

"It was the same at my school."

Nosedive placed a hand on my back and said, "True rockers and metalheads are actually cool to hang out with." He asked his friends, "Remember when Scott Ian came in Captain Comics?"

I'm embarrassed to say that back then, I had no clue who Scott Ian was. But I was too prideful to ask.

"Yeah, man," said Thrash. "How could I forget?"

"He hung out, like, all day," said Mookie. "He really loves Comics. We ordered some collector's editions for him."

"We wanted to smoke with him," said Thrash, "but he's allergic."

"Thrash!" scolded Nosedive. "My brother is RIGHT THERE! Don't go talking about grass."

"What is grass?" asked Wildwing.

"It's that green shit growing on the ground," said Nosedive. "Anyway, don't let those assholes at school give you a bad impression of rockers. They aren't real. I wouldn't even want those posers to like me."

"Yeah," said Mookie. "You know all that stuff they tell you not to care about? Like the environment and the oppressive structure of the white capitalist patriarchy? That stuff was all my old band wrote about!"

I was in awe. Even though she talked like a stoned valley girl, this Mookie person was awesome and a lot more intelligent than the cartoon had made her out to be. I had to pick her wonderful brain. "You're so cool!" I said. "There's nobody like you at my school! Nosedive told me you were a riot grrl! I don't even know what the hell that is, but you have to teach me about it. It sounds fuckin' awesome!"

"You don't know what riot grrl is?"

"Nope."

"Oh my god, you have to listen to this." She handed me a cd and I put it in the CD player.

I heard nonmusical punk rock with a woman "singing" in a high pitched voice that actually reminded me of Mookie's.

"Is this your old band?"

"I wish! This is Bikini Kill! The quintessential riot grrl band."

I'm sorry to admit that at first, I was underimpressed. It wasn't very musical music. I'd be much more excited about women going out and proving they can actually play. But it occurred to me that maybe riot grrls didn't want to sound spectacular, they just wanted an outlet for their anger and a way to get their point across. Maybe it was therapeutic for them.

"It's…pretty cool," I said.

"Nosedive doesn't like it either," said Mookie. "He says he can sing better than her. But even he likes Kathleen Hanna's charisma and what she gets across with her lyrics."

"You could do what she does," Nosedive told me. "Only way better."

"Hell yeah!" I said. "When I scream, I actually sound scary." Maybe I was acquiring some of that Nosedive confidence.

"He told us you could sing," said Mookie. "And that's not a compliment he bestows on just anybody, so you totally have to sing for us."

"Not now," I said shyly. "I want to pick your brain. Come sit with me while the Ducks are socializing and tell me about this riot grrl stuff. I have to know all about it."

Even though it was probably three in the morning, I cleared my papers off the table so Mookie and I could sit there and talk.

"This riot grrl stuff," I asked, "does it have anything to do being angry at gender roles and stuff?"

"It's about all kinds of stuff!" said Mookie. "It started when a bunch of girls who like punk rock got tired of being treated like women don't belong in the scene, so they created their own scene. Not only that, a lot of their songs have sociopolitical relevance. Which is actually pretty standard for punk rock. But the difference was that riot grrl bands weren't afraid to embrace feminism."

"Feminism?" As much as I hated gender roles, I'd never gone the extra mile and studied feminism. I assumed that feminists just wanted to reverse the gender roles whereas I wanted to obliterate them altogether. Besides, the few books about feminism I'd flipped through dealt with a lot of things I'd rather not think about. Things like domestic violence. Shit that made me sick to my stomach.

"Like, yeah!" said Mookie. "Don't be afraid of the F word. All it is, is a movement that advocates for political, social, and economic equality of the sexes."

"That movement is failing," I said. "I'm sure you know about the bill that's being drafted by Rutherford!"

Mookie put her head in her hands and said, "UHHHG I hate him! I hate all of this. I don't blame Mallory and Tanya for wanting to go back to Puckworld."

"Me neither!" I said. "Did you know that they're requiring me to take Home Ec at school because I'm a girl?"

"Are you serious?"

"Sadly, yes."

"Holy fuck, we're going all the way back to Leave it to Beaver. I am SO going to Puckworld with the Ducks."

"Maybe I will, too. I never knew that there was a world without gender roles."

"For real? I've always known a world like that was possible."

"I didn't think it was possible," I admitted. "I have to admit, a part of me believes the sexist shit I hear. I mean, I try and tell myself I'm not inferior, but it always feels like I'm lying to myself."

"Don't worry," said Mookie. "You're not inferior. Gender roles were just created by society. Although, gender itself is another debate and I don't feel like getting into it. Not all riot grrls agree about it."

"Is that why your band broke up?"

"Partly. Didi wouldn't let Exit write any lyrics because she said Exit was too radical. Then, Didi ended up having to get a full-time job, and Exit went off to college and Clarissa moved back to Florida with her mom when her dad died."

"Oh."

"Like, I see both sides in their debate, so I tend to stay out of it. I'm not as radical as Exit, but I'm the only one who was really her friend."

"Could you maybe teach me about both sides of their debate? I don't know where I stand yet."

"I tell you what, when I go back to Anaheim I'll round up all my books and bring 'em here next time we visit."

I contemplated that for a while. Mookie had definitely gotten me curious about this stuff, and given me a more hopeful outlook on nature and the world. I didn't want to wait for her to go all the way back to Anaheim, find her books, and then wait until next time the Ducks found it convenient to bring her here.

"I have a better idea," I said. "You'll be here a few days, right?"

"Right."

"Well, I'm friends with the local librarian. Maybe you could go with me to the library tomorrow and point me to some good books."

"Sure! That sounds like fun! Then maybe after that we could all jam or something!"

"Hell yeah."

Nosedive came and put an arm around me. "I knew you two would hit it off," he said. "See, not all members of your species are screwed up."

"Agreed."

"I'm glad you have Mookie to talk to," Nosedive continued. "We don't really have the same problems on my planet, so I may disapprove of what some of the humans do, but I don't know what it's like to actually experience it. Hopefully she can help, though."

"At least you WANT to help," said Mookie. "I think you two are perfect for each other. Even though you are king of the smartasses."

"I'm proud of that title, thank you. They even mention it on my trading card."

"I know," I said. "I have that one. Says you don't know when to keep your bill shut."

"That's right!"

I looked through the cracks in the barn walls. The sun was coming up. I had to get ready for school.

"Fuck," I said. "I just pulled an all-nighter. I need to go get ready for school. Thrash, Mookie, it was great meeting you guys! Ducks, I'll see you soon!"

Nosedive followed me out of the barn.

I threw my arms around him and said, "I'm so glad you're here!"

"Me too. I'll be here when you get home today."

I squeezed him tighter. "I hadn't known ducks were capable of sticking their tongues out," I said, referring to the other day.

"Did you like it, or was it too soon? Mookie says I probably should have asked first."

"You discussed that with Mookie?"

"Only to get advice."

"Well, at least you got advice from Mookie. We seem to be on the same page about a lot of things. So. To answer your question, I did like it."

"You did, huh?" His eyes lit up.

"Damn right. Come here, Baby Boo, let's do it again."

I don't know why I started calling him Baby Boo, but it stuck.

We made out for about 10 minutes before I finally made my way back home. I didn't feel like someone who had pulled an all-nighter. I felt like I was on Cloud 9.


	14. Chapter 14

Don't call me Penelope 14

I felt giddy as I left the barn. Tongue action with an alien duck was the first real sexual activity I'd ever engaged in. And Dive was really good at it (or was he? I had no previous boyfriends to compare him to). I found myself running joyfully to the house. My grandparents wouldn't quite be awake yet. I knew my mom had recently come home from work and collapsed on the couch, falling asleep immediately. That's what she always did. I had a few minutes before I had to get ready for school. That meant I had time to do a final draft of the forged note I would use to frame Marcus.

After I climbed in the window, I went looking for some wide-ruled paper. It was the only kind of paper Marcus used. I mainly used college ruled paper because you could fit more stuff on the page, but most kids used wide-ruled for the exact opposite reason.

Sadly, it was difficult to find wide-ruled paper in my house. I had to dig through old assignments from second grade when I was required to use wide ruled (See Grandma? It's a GOOD thing I never throw anything away! All hail the pack rat!). As luck would have it, one notebook contained a blank page. There was only one, so I had to get it right. Looking at the original note from Marcus as a reference, and some of my practice pages, I wrote:

Hey Danny I fond this new brainwashing book u need too come over too my howse and c it

You see, Marcus couldn't spell worth shit, and used no punctuation. I think I captured his writing style perfectly. I put the note on my bedside table and picked out an outfit to wear. Jeans and a black shirt. My outfit wasn't solid black, so hopefully, the faculty wouldn't complain.

Once I was dressed, I crumbled up my forgery and put it in my pocket.

My grandmother came in the room. "My goodness! You're already ready for school! I'm so proud of you."

"Yep," I said, and thought silently, that's because I haven't been to bed! I've been kissing a duck and learning about riot grrls. And preparing to frame a fellow student.

By the time I got on the bus, all of my excitement had worn off. I was exhausted by all of my recent late nights. Once again, I decided to try to sleep on the bus. But again, that kid came and talked my ear off about some movie he had watched about a guy with amnesia. Fortunately, when some older kids got on the bus, the dude left me alone for fear of being seen with Weird Girl.

When Doom got on the bus, she asked, "Do you know how you're gonna deal with Swayne?"

"I have a plan," I said. "Just wait."

That day, I made it a point to get to class early. I didn't pee before heading to the classroom: I charged ahead and made sure I was the first student to arrive.

To my annoyance, Mrs. Gere was already in the room. But she was looking at stuff on her desk, getting ready for the day's lesson. If I was very careful, I could throw the paper wad somewhere in the direction of Danny Short's desk without Mrs. Gere noticing.

But I kept hesitating. What if she saw me throwing it in her peripheral vision?

Then she got up. "Watch the room for me," she said. "I'm going to get some coffee."

Perfect. Right as she left, I threw the wad near Danny's desk. Just a few seconds after that, kids began filing into the room. Things couldn't have gone any better. Danny didn't seem to notice the paper wad near his desk. Paper wads were so common. Doom came and sat beside me.

"The operation is going well," I whispered to her.

That's when Mrs. Gere walked back into the room. She scanned the classroom and her eyes locked on the paperwad. "That JANITOR needs to be FIRED!" she said. "Or is that a NEW paper wad?"

She went to the wad, picked it up and unwrinkled it. A scowl spread across her face. She looked at Marcus.

"Marcus," she said. "Come with me."

"Wha'd I do?"

"COME WITH ME!"

"Uh-OK."

Marcus followed Mrs. Gere out to the hall, looking like a scared rabbit. "YOU'RE going to see Mrs. SWAYNE!" we could hear her yell. A smile spread across my face. I leaned as close to Doom as possible and whispered in a microscopic voice, "We're not suspects anymore."

I doubted the other kids would suspect what Doom and I were talking about. They probably just assumed we were having a laugh at his expense. Kids always did that when other kids got in trouble.

"Marcus is such a dick," I said out loud.

MEANWHILE: Loki's POV

With Fang safely away at school, it was time for me to go look for the wizard Aldo. If I could find him and learn how to open up dimensional portals with magic, then I wouldn't have to break in to Los Alamos in order to find a way for my fellow Ducks to get back to Peeravara.

When Grandma let me out to pee, I lifted my leg on a tree and then went to the fence, where I entered Harcourt.

I'd been to Pandora's castle before. I knew the way. I just hadn't known that the wizard lived there. He was apparently a very antisocial human, or bookperson, or toon. Whatever he was.

It was a beautiful day in Harcourt. The flowers were in full bloom and birds flew all around.

I could smell dead skunk drifting on the air. I fought with the canine instinct to go find it and eat it, because I was a duck on a mission.

I found the small dirt trail that led to the vicinity of Pandora's castle.

"Loki!" said an all-too- familiar voice. It was my wife, Amber. She ran up to me and rubbed against me because that's what cats do. In truth, I'd begun feeling awkward around my wife since I was going to be a shapeshifter soon. I hadn't yet told her that I was actually a duck trapped in a dog's body.

"You've been distant lately," she said. "You never come see me."

"Well, I'm sorry. I've been busy."

"Husbands and wives are supposed to spend time together."

"Husbands and wives are also supposed to live together."

"…you're right. Let's move in together. You should move in with me."

"I can't leave my human, Amber. I just can't! I'm her best friend! I'm all she's got! Why don't you come live with me? We can make a nice little dog and cat sized house in the loft."

"I don't know...I'd have to make sure it's a safe place. There's something you ought to know."

"Yes?"

"I'm pregnant."

I thought I was going to explode. "WHAT? You're pregnant? Who's the dad? I can't be the dad! You're a cat and I'm a dog."

"You are the dad," said Amber. "I'm a Toon. Toons crossbreed all the time. How do you think Catdog happened?"

"…But we've been doing it for years and you haven't gotten pregnant."

"I was on Toon birth control."

"I thought the only legitimate way to have toon sex was to play patty cake. I didn't think our sex counted…wait! That came out completely wrong. I'm sorry."

"We had legitimate sex. I'm legitimately pregnant and you are legitimately the dad!"

"…WOW! I'm a dad! I'm a dad!" I was so happy, I temporarily forgot the mission. "I can't believe I'm a dad!" I licked Amber all over.

"Let's make love," said Amber, who was no longer angry.

"Make love? I have some stuff to attend to!"

"I haven't seen you in forever! You don't love me…"

Boy did I feel guilty. "Ok," I said. "We'll make love, but then I have to go on a big perilous mission. I'll return tonight and we can make love even more. Deal?"

"First, what is this perilous mission?"

"Um, it has to do with the Order, and protecting Harcourt."

"That's what you always say."

"I'm telling the truth. You know about the Prophecy. Harcish matters are my business."

"There better not be another lover!"

"No. There's not. I'm going to see an old gray wizard. Nothing sexy about him. Now do you want to make love?"

"Let's make love."

"I promise I'll spend more time with you…"

We made love out there on the trail and nobody saw us. "For once, you didn't fall asleep on top of me," she said. Before we departed, I told her she would make a wonderful mother, and she told me to be safe because she wanted me to be a big part of the kids' lives. I promised her I would be. I didn't tell her that I might be a duck half the time…I was still thinking about how to break the news to her.

In a couple hours, I stood before the castle, which was surrounded by a great moat.

"Hello, Sir," said the guard.

"Greetings," I said. "I'm seeking audience with your wizard."

"The wizard is in a snit today. But, because you are a hero, we shall lower the drawbridge and let you across. LOWER THE BRIDGE!"

The guards on the other side began lowering the bridge. "Thank you sir," I said.

I crossed the bridge and was greeted by a blue bird. She wasn't humanoid. She looked like a regular bird. I didn't know if she was a Bookperson or a Toon, but it didn't really matter.

"Greetings, Initiate," said the bird. Apparently, she knew who I was. "May I be your guide?"

"You may, if you know the way to the wizard Aldo."

"He is in a snit today."

"So I've heard. But I have urgent matters to discuss with him all the same."

"Very well."

The little bird led me past countless bookshelves, tapestries and crystal ornaments to the highest point in the tallest tower of the castle. We stopped at a closed door where the bird asked, "Aldo, do you have time to speak to a guest?"

"I am not receiving guests today!" said the wizard gruffly.

"But it's very important!" I said.

"Your voice sounds familiar…" said the wizard. He opened the door. "Come in." The wizard was a skinny human, with a long grizzled beard and a blue robe with pictures of moons and stars. I tried not to laugh.

"I'll, uh, be downstairs," said the bird, who then flew away.

I went in the wizard's cozy little room where there was a fire in the fireplace.

"What brings you here?" said the wizard, who picked up a stein and took a drink of what smelled like mulled cider.

"For one," I said, "If you're the wizard who turned me into a dog, I have to tell you that I don't appreciate you erasing my memory for so many years. Do you know that I ate chicken? I ate a fellow bird, and I liked it! A dumb, idiotic bird that eats boogers and worms, but a bird nonetheless. Andar has strict punishments for souls who engage in cannibalism. When I remembered that I was a duck, I realized that my soul is doomed when I'm ir Andar."

"Surely, your god will realize that the cannibalism was unintentional."

"That's not the point! The point is, I had a right to know that I was a duck!"

"I refuse to discuss this," said the wizard. "Is this all you came to talk about?"

"No, actually, it's not! I would like to know how you brought me to the other dimension from my dimension. My fellow ducks who are trapped on Earth need a way to get back to Peeravara."

"I am not a duck delivery service."

"Just tell me how to get them back to Peeravara and I'll do it myself."

"I cannot just simply tell you how to do portal magic," said the wizard. "First you must become an apprentice wizard and study under me. And then you must become a journeyman wizard. Next, you would have to become an adept wizard. Only adept wizards are trusted with portal magic."

"I don't have that much time! My friends HAVE to get to their planet. Earth is not kind to us. It is becoming illegal to have original thoughts. Females are being forced into subservient roles. Corporations control everything. We can't stand it."

"I know of your situation," said Aldo. "Children in the so-called real world are losing their imaginations. Politicians are teamed up with corporations to brainwash everyone. Harcourt is fading because not enough people imagine us. You must help by staying on planet Earth. It is the only way."

"But-"

"It is in the prophecy. You're work on Earth is not done."

"I'm not leaving Earth."

"If you got a taste of home, you wouldn't want to return to Earth. I cannot let that happen. Goodbye." The wizard raised his wand. Uttered some words in Latin, and next thing I knew, I was being sucked into a vortex and then plopped right back in front of the house.

"Dammit!" I cussed. I scratched on the door, and Grandma let me in. I was beginning to think breaking into Los Alamos would be easier than getting information out of Aldo.

Who was I kidding? It wouldn't be easy, but it was still something I was trained to do, whereas magic was something I had little experience with, unless you counted the Literaturizing ceremony.

Wait! That was it! Maybe the same book that had directions for Literaturizing also had directions for opening portals. The Chair book was in Lucian's vault. I would have to go back to the library.


	15. Chapter 15

Fang's POV

I was having a lot of trouble staying awake in Pre-Algebra. I'd really have to stop pulling all-nighters. When I wasn't having to shake myself awake, I was having to shake myself out of daydreams about Nosedive. He had literally consumed my mind. My relationship with him was so unexpected. How was I to know that the Mighty Ducks were going to land in my field one day? After meeting him, I'd realized Loki was right. I'd had a thing for Nosedive all along.

"Penelope," Mr. Beavis asked, shaking me out of my wonderful daydreams. "What is the square root of 8?"

"Uh…" I started to work it out on paper when the bell rang. Thank goodness. It was time for lunch.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," I said, and went out to the hall as fast as I could.

I opened my locker to discover that I had forgotten my lunch box. Damn it. I placed my books in my locker and went to get in the feeding line with the rest of the livestock. I pondered what I would do after school. I was going to see if Doom wanted to ride home from school with me and hang out, but I was too tired. I figured I'd go home, say hi to Nosedive, and then take a really long nap.

At some point, while I was standing in line thinking about all that, I felt someone behind me pull my hair. I turned to see a tall, lanky kid from my economics class named Donovan.

"Did you pull my hair?" I asked.

"Fuck no!" he said. "I wouldn't touch the nasty shit!"

I don't know what snapped in me. I do not, in any way, condone violence. But all the years of pent up anger at these people added up and I just lost it. I hauled off and punched the bastard. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a true Rage. If I had been, it probably would have hurt Donovan when I punched him. I'd spent so much time trying to suppress the Rage and now it wasn't there when I needed it.

"That tickled," he said, not fazed. Oh, I hated feeling weak. I reached up and put my hands around the bastard's neck. I wasn't REALLY going to strangle him. Like I said, I wasn't in a Rage, so I was in complete control of my actions. I just wanted him to fear me.

"You two! In my office! Now!" said Principal Maus. Uh oh. I hadn't known he was in the cafeteria.

With dread in our hearts, asshole Donovan and I followed Principal Maus into his office.

We sat down on a couch (on opposite ends, as far from each other as possible) and principal Maus sat behind his desk.

"What happened?" he asked.

Before I could open my mouth, Donovan said, "She punched me!"

"I'm sure there's more to it than that," said the principal. "People don't punch each other for no reason."

"He was making fun of me," I said. "Like he always does. We were standing in the lunch line when he pulled my hair. When I turned around and confronted him, he denied it. He said 'I wouldn't touch the nasty shit!' But he gives me trouble all the time. He goes around throwing things at me and laughing with Marcus and Danny about how ugly I am and all that stuff. I say if I'm that ugly, then don't look at me! Leave me alone!"

"Is it true?" Maus asked Donovan.

"No," said Donovan.

"I haven't known Penelope to lie," said Principal Maus. "I've heard you kids in the hallway talking about her. You'll really have a laugh when you're working for her one day. She's a good student."

"Ha!" I said, to rub it in.

"So, Donovan," said the principal. "If you continue to bully Penelope I'll have to suspend you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now I'd like to have a word with Penelope. Go on back to lunch."

"Teacher's pet," snarled Donovan as he left the office.

Principal Maus looked at me and said, "Now, Penelope, I know what you've been going through and I don't think it is right that these boys pick on you. But what you did was a crime. You put your hands around his neck. You could go to jail for that."

I gulped. "Am I…gonna go to jail?"

"If his parents find out about it, they may decide to press charges. But I think I know away to avoid that. It requires suspending you. That way, if his parents come in here to complain, I can honestly tell them that I'm dealing with the problem. If they know I'm dealing with it, they'll be less inclined to deal with it themselves."

"Will this affect my grades?"

"Usually, when kids get suspended, they get zeros for the whole week that they're suspended. But I'll make an exception for you. I'll let you get your work from your teachers so you can do it while you're at home."

I smiled. Maybe not everyone in the world was scum after all.

"Why don't you go ask your teachers about your upcoming assignments while I call your mom to come pick you up?"

"Sounds good to me," I said. This was the best punishment ever! I'd get to do my school work at home in peace and have an asshole-free week! "Thanks, Principal Maus." I felt guilty about the times I'd called him Mickey Maus under my breath. He was a really cool principal.

The car ride home was pleasant.

"Principal Maus explained everything," said my mom. "And you're not in trouble with me. Just please, please don't go around strangling people. I don't want my daughter to go to jail."

"I'll try my best," I said.

Instead of going straight home, we cruised the backroads a while and listened to music. This was exactly why I couldn't move to Peeravara a.k.a. Puckworld: I'd miss going on adventures with Mom, one of the only people who makes any sense.

When we got home, Mom went back to bed because she had work that night. But I walked up to the barn to see my Duckie.

When I got to the barn, the team was deep in discussion with Loki about something. Nosedive broke off from the group and gave me a hug.

"You're back early!" he said. "How was your day?"

"I'm suspended! It's awesome! Now I get to spend more time with you!"

"What happened?"

"Fucker behind me in the lunch line pulled my hair and called me nasty, so I punched him but it didn't hurt so I acted like I was gonna strangle him."

"Remind me not to get on your bad side. Damn. Do you know how miserable I'd be if you were in jail?"

"I'd be miserable too. That's why my career as the High School Strangler is over."

Thrash and Mookie walked over. Thrash began singing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," and Mookie said, "So, ready to go to the library?"

"Hell yeah!" I said. "I need some of Lucian's coffee. I fell asleep about 30 times today!"

"Loki's coming with us," said Nosedive. "He's gonna look for some book that might tell how to do portal magic. And if that doesn't work out, Los Alamos is a go."

"Then I hope he can find the info in a book. The Los Alamos mission sounds dangerous. Hey, Loki! Ready to go to the library?"

"Sure!" Loki left the group of ducks and joined us. We walked down to the main road via the secret passage in the woods.

"So," said Loki. "I have news."

"What's that?"

"Amber's pregnant! And I'm the dad!"

"Dude! How does that even work? You're a cat and she's a dog."

Nosedive's eyes lit up. He was probably wondering if it was possible to make babies with me. I hoped not. It was too early to think about such things.

"She's a toon cat," said Loki. "She's able to have interspecies babies."

"Whoa," said Thrash. "So like, will they be cats or dogs or both?"

"They'll be Catdogs," said Nosedive.

I laughed, but Loki didn't find it very funny. "I hope not," he said. "I don't even know how Catdog poops."

Everybody roared with laughter.

Nosedive said, "Dog barfs out Cat's shit and vice-versa. Duh."

"Or," said Mookie, "maybe there's like a hole in the middle."

"How do they screw?" asked Thrash. "They don't have dicks."

"Maybe they don't," said Dive. "Maybe they both just give head."

"Either way," said Thrash, "It's always a threesome!"

"Unless they're somehow doing each other," I said. "I mean, they might have genitals. Male cats' genitals are up inside their bodies."

"But you'd still see the balls," said Thrash.

"True," I said.

Finally I had found my tribe: Nosedive and his crazy friends. Loki just shook his head…


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: There's some drug references in this chapter, but again, I do not advocate drug use. Also, there's some gross stuff and sociopolitical stuff that hopefully will not detract from the story.

"You're back soon!" said Sir Lucian when Thrash, Mookie, Loki, Nosedive and I walked into the library.

"Yep," I said. "With new friends. That one's Thrash, and that one's Mookie."

"Hello," said Lucian formally. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"So," asked Mookie, "Like, do you have a women's studies section?"

"Of course," said Lucian. "Right this way."

"After you show them the women's studies stuff," asked Loki, "Can I speak to you in private?"

"Sure."

Lucian led us upstairs (how many floors did this library have? It was huge!) where the women's studies stuff was.

"Are you going to look at the feminist stuff too, Dive?" asked Thrash.

Nosedive shrugged.

"You should totally come with me and hunt down the science fiction stuff."

"Oh, come on," said Mookie. "It wouldn't hurt you boys to read some of these books. Besides, feminist science fiction is actually a thing."

Thrash groaned, but he went ahead and accompanied us to the women's studies section. Loki went back downstairs with Lucian.

"Let's see," said Mookie. "I want to point you to all of the classics first."

Thrash looked at the books before him. "What about The Vagina Monologues? That seems interesting. Or Intercourse by Andrea….I can't read that last name."

"You're just picking those because they sound sexual," said Mookie. "Actually, Fang should read Intercourse. It's really controversial and I'm not sure I agree with it, but I think people should know about all the opinions out there, not just the mainstream ones." She took Intercourse from the shelf and handed it to me.

"Sisterhood is Powerful is a classic too," said Mookie. "But it's totally NOT intersectional enough, so just read it for historic reasons." She took the book down and handed it to me. "And here's The Dialectic of Sex." She placed that upon my pile as well.

By the end of our library visit, I was loaded down with books. I had the good 'ol classics such as The Feminine Mystique, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and The Second Sex. In addition, I had more radical tomes such as Intercourse, Sexual Politics, and Gyn/Ecology. Also, I had Gender Trouble, the book that Mookie's former singer had lived by (but that the guitarist, Exit, didn't like).

Thrash had come away with a copy of The Handmaid's tale, which Mookie had shoved in his hand.

On the walk back to the house, I carried as many books as I could on my own, in effort to prove that I wasn't weak. Nosedive had some and so did Mookie. We were loaded down with books.

"Did you have any luck finding information about portals?" I asked Loki.

"No," said Loki. "None at all. Looks like I'm going to Los Alamos. Moka's turning me into a shifter tomorrow night, so I guess I'll leave some time after that."

"Ah." I tried my best not to worry about my little dog. I turned my thoughts to Exit. I was utterly fascinated by her.

"How do you feel about Exit?" I asked Nosedive. "Did you like her?"

"Never met her," he said. "Teeth had already broken up when I met Mookie. Hey Mookie! Tell her why your band's name was Teeth."

"It's named after Vagina Dentata. Aka, vaginal teeth that tear off the dicks off rapists."

"Whoa! Really? Can I get teeth to grow in my vagina?"

"Sadly, no," she said. "It's just a myth. A lot of old cultures believed in it."

"Do you guys only talk about genitalia?" asked Loki. "I'm not a prude or anything, but it started with Catdog and it's gone on ever since."

"Hey," I said. "This stuff is interesting. If you really wanna get freaked out, you should play the gross game with us."

"Oh, boy," said Loki.

"The Gross Game?" Thrash inquired.

"Yep," I said. "It's a game where we go through the alphabet and come up with gross stuff that starts with that letter."

"Dude! That sounds awesome!" Thrash's voice was filled with wonder.

"It is. Loki, you're walking in the front, you get the letter A. I get B. Dive gets C, and so on."

"Do I have to?"

"Yep. Letter A. Gimme something gross."

Loki sighed. "Assholes with poop coming out."

"Decent," I said. "But mine's much better: Bloody stool that's been sitting in the toilet for months and has flies swarming all around it."

Everybody laughed. "So it can be a full sentence?" asked Nosedive.

"As long as it starts with your letter."

"OK. Children rolling in cow shit, sticking it in each other's' mouths and ears."

I laughed hysterically. "You're up, Mookster."

"Dicks dripping with yellowish brown puss."

I clapped and howled with laughter.

"Excellent!" said Thrash. "E is a hard one. Um…elephants puking up their own guts and watching it get eaten by hyenas!"

"This is great!" said Mookie.

"Nosedive," said Thrash, "You have a seriously rad girlfriend. Even if she is a feminist."

Mookie elbowed Thrash and Nosedive gave him a look.

"Back to you," I told Loki. "You have F."

"Feet full of toe jam being licked by foot fetishists. And it gets stuck in their teeth."

"Nice!" I congratulated Loki. "See? You're good at this!" I was so happy. I noticed a change in myself when I was around Nosedive. My grandmother always told me love would make me want to conform, but found that Nosedive had the opposite effect on me. I walked with more of a strut. I laughed louder. I showed off my physical strength and intelligence. These are all the things that Fang does when she's in a good mood, and to my surprise, Nosedive seemed to like it. He showed off for me, too. We were like most people would expect 10 year old boys to be: climbing on rocks and making too much noise. Our friends might well have found us obnoxious.

But when we got back to the barn, I pretty much ignored him.

I didn't ignore him on purpose: I just couldn't keep my nose out of the books. While I read, he went outside with Thrash to hang out. Something about Puff the Magic Dragon. But Mookie stayed with me and flipped through books too.

"What do you think?" asked Mookie. "Are you converted now? Are you a riot grrl?"

That question was hard to answer. There was a huge stigma associated with being a feminist. But I discovered from reading the books that real feminists do not hate men. They do not want to reverse gender roles, they want to liberate people from those roles completely.

"I think I'm too mean to be a feminist," I said. "I still don't trust the majority of men, so I might give feminism a bad name. I don't want to confirm the stereotype that they're all man-haters. And that would be hard because I am pretty much an angry little person. But I've definitely learned a lot from you! I used to think that gender roles were a product of nature. I believed all men were sadists and that I was inferior to them. I even cried when I started my period because I thought nature would make me quit being a tomboy and shit. Everyone always told me I was just going through a phase."

"That, my friend, is essentialism," said Mookie. "Essentialism is bad."

"I know that now! I realize that I'm not going through a phase. The way I am is a perfectly valid way to be a woman. There's people out there who don't think there's something wrong with me for being assertive and shit. You made me realize there's nothing wrong with me!"

I ran up to Mookie and gave her a big hug. "There's nothing wrong with me! Biology doesn't make me inferior! This is so awesome!" Mookie looked a little bit freaked out that I was hugging her.

"Sorry," I said. "I should have asked before doing that."

I ran outside and gave Nosedive a big hug. "I had a revelation! There's nothing wrong with me!" I proclaimed. "Biology doesn't make me a servant! It's not me that's fucked up, it's society and our politicians!"

He said, "I could have told you that." I squeezed him even tighter.

"Want some herb?" asked Thrash.

"No thanks," I said. "I don't smoke. I don't want to ruin my amazing voice."

"Ha!" Nosedive said to Thrash. "There ya go!"

"Nosedive doesn't smoke," Thrash explained to me. "He just stands around and watches me smoke. Which is totally fine. More weed for me."

Loki came out of the barn. "Oh shit!" said Thrash, and he stuffed the lit joint into his mouth and swallowed it. Nosedive and I tried not to laugh or give any indication as to what happened, but that was difficult.

"Sir, you're under arrest!" said Loki jokingly.

"Uhhhhh" said Thrash. But Loki didn't feel like pressing the issue.

"So here's the agenda," said Loki. "I'm going to be turned into a shapeshifter tomorrow at Moka's. Fang, you will be allowed to bring Doom, but nobody else. And you guys are welcome to come. But do not tell anyone about it. ANYONE."

"Who would I bring besides Doom?" I asked. "All my friends are right here."

"Well," said Loki, "I was just making sure. Then, the day after tomorrow, I am going to be going to New Mexico. Tonight I'm going to go tell Amber that I'll be out on business. I haven't decided what to tell the other humans yet, but I have a pretty good idea. I'll discuss it with you in the morning."

"OK," I said.

"I can't wait for them to meet Moka!" said Nosedive. "We can all have a big jam session."

"Hell yeah!" I said. "I haven't jammed with anyone in a while. I can't with for you guys to meet Doom. She's awesome!"

After Loki outlined his plans, I thought about asking Mallory if she would show me some fighting moves, but I was too tired from lack of sleep. I decided I'd go home and get started on my schoolwork instead. If I could get it all done quickly, I could enjoy the rest of the time that I was suspended.

"Hey, Nosedive," I said. I beckoned for him to follow me into the woods. We went about 20 yards above the barn and I said, "I'm going to miss you tremendously, but I have work to do and then I'm going to take a nap. Why don't you come sneak in my window around 2:00 a.m. and wake me up? We can watch cartoons for a few hours."

"Sure! What do we do if your grandparents see me?"

"They'll assume their medication is making them hallucinate. Actually, they won't see you. Just remember, my window is the one with the curtains down in front of it."

"Ok." He had his arms around me. "I don't want you to go."

I tried to think up a solution. I didn't want to be away from him either. "You could always sit in my room with me while I study, but you'd be bored."

"Nah, I could turn cartoons on."

"OK. Awesome. But my folks are awake, so we have to be careful. I'll lock the door to my room, but if they knock, hide in the closet."

"Alright! Piece of cake."

So we took the secret trail and went to my house. In retrospect, we probably shouldn't have left Thrash and Mookie to entertain themselves, but they had comic books and musical instruments (even though they'd have to play unplugged), so we rationalized that they would be perfectly fine without us. Yep. People in love can be bad friends sometimes.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: I don't own Freakazoid, but I read that the writer of MD:TAS was influenced by it, so I thought I would pay homage!

It was extremely hard to concentrate on doing homework with Nosedive sitting on the edge of my bed watching cartoons. Between his lovely body and hilarious commentary on everything, I ended up taking several breaks from my work to talk to him.

"I can't believe you've never seen Freakazoid!" he said.

"I have seen bits and pieces," I said. "I just never watched a whole episode."

"Then you've gotta check it out. It influenced a lot of the humor in our show." He flipped the channel and found Freakazoid. It was just coming on. Until then, I hadn't known the theme song was so hilarious and random (I couldn't resist including the whole thing, just in case some people have forgotten how random it is):

Super-teen extraordinaire

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

Runs around in underwear

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

Rescues Washington D.C.

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

Unless something better's on TV

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

His brain's overloading

It has a chocolate coating

Textbook case for Sigmund Freud

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

Check out Dexter Douglas

Nerd computer ace

Went surfing on the internet

And was zapped to cyberspace

He turned into the Freakazoid

He's strong and super-quick

He drives the villains crazy

'Cause he's a lunatic

His home base is the Freakalair

Freakazoid! Fricassee!

Floyd the Barber cuts his hair

Freakazoid! Chimpanzee!

Rides around in the Freakmobile

Freakazoid! Freakazoo!

Hopes to make a movie deal

Freaka me! Freaka you!

He's here to save the nation

So stay tuned to this station

If not, we'll be unemployed

Freakazoid! Freakazoid!

Freakazoid!

"This is awesome," I admitted.

"See!"

"Speaking of the animated series, is there still gonna be a show about you guys when you move back to Puckworld?"

"I hope so. Season 2 should be out soon."

"Sweet! I can't wait."

I'd done a decent amount of work, so I sat it aside and cuddled up with Nosedive. I'd only met him a few days ago. What would Mom say if she knew I'd let him into my room AND locked the door? Would she be mad at me for sneaking a guy in, or would she be glad that I was finally acting like a regular teenager? I didn't want to know.

I was impressed that he was being respectful and not trying to pressure me into anything, but he looked uncomfortable sitting on the edge of the bed trying to be all appropriate. Even with my arm around him, I felt like he'd probably rather lay back.

"Here," I said. "Let's lay back and cuddle. It'll be more comfortable."

"OK!" He'd been hoping I would say that.

He came and laid his head on a pile of pillows, and I rested my head on his chest. Despite his constant laughing over Freakazoid, I was asleep in minutes. I'd been running myself ragged and it had caught up with me.

Next thing I knew, my mom was knocking on the door and I woke up. Nosedive silently slipped out from under me and into the closet like we had discussed.

I let my mom in.

"I'm going to work," she said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm ok," I assured her. "You just woke me up. That's all."

"Well, I love you. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I love you too," I said, and gave her a hug. When she left, she forgot to close the door behind her, so I closed it. Right as Nosedive was about to come out of his hiding place, my grandmother knocked on the door. He got re-situated.

"Supper's ready," Grandma said.

"OK," I told her through the door. "Be out in a minute."

Nosedive stayed put while I went and got some food. It was fried chicken. I doubted Nosedive would want any of it, so I got potato chips, pop tarts and fruit-roll-ups for him. I knew he liked junk food.

"That's a lot of food," said Grandma. "Don't gorge yourself."

"Snacks help me do homework," I said, and it was actually a true statement. I carried the whole load of stuff into the room. "I forgot drinks," I said quietly. "We're out of Mountain Dew. Is tea or Root Beer OK?"

"Root Beer works," he said quietly from the closet. I went out to the extra fridge in the garage and got a root beer and fixed some tea for myself. Then I went back in the room and locked the door behind me.

"Ok," I said. "We should be good for a while."

"Thanks for feeding me," he said. He exited the closet and got back on the bed.

"What are your teammates doing about food?" I asked.

"They're probably going out to eat," he said. "And I think they're getting a hotel room. So it's just me and you now."

I didn't blame them. I had tried to make the barn into a comfy little haven for them, but there was an awful lot of dust and no toilets.

Loki hadn't gone with them. In fact, Loki scratched on the door shortly after I locked it. He had to be aware that Nosedive was there. With their sense of smell and hearing, dogs always know if someone extra is staying the night.

I hoped he wouldn't tell Mom.

He knew better than to tell Granddaddy. Nobody would wish Granddaddy's wrath upon anyone.

"Let me in," said Loki. "I know you guys are having a romantic moment, but I have a question."

I let Loki in.

"Is it ok if Amber comes over?" he asked.

"Sure," I said. "But don't let Grandma see her. You know how she is about cats."

"She's going to stay in the loft," said Loki. "We're thinking about building a home up there. She's going to build a pully so I can go up and down…I can't climb as well as she can."

"That's fine with me," I said.

"Great," said Loki. "If you can help me get everyone used to the idea of me moving my wife in here, then I won't tell anybody about you sneaking Nosedive in your room. Deal?"

"OK," I said. "I guess I'll start telling Mom that I want a cat. Then the two of us will slowly warm Grandma up to the idea."

"Good deal. I'm going to go get to work."

"Alright," I said. "By the way, I'm sorry I ever thought your cross-species relationship was weird."

"Of course you'd say that now." Loki walked away and I closed the door behind him, locking it yet again.

"Finally we're alone!" I said. We devoured our food like starving barbarians and watched Darkwing Duck.

"I'm glad you got to meet Mookie," said Nosedive. "I thought you two would hit it off."

"I definitely have more faith in my own species now."

"What did you do with those books?"

"I left 'em at the barn, 'cause I figured they might be a distraction from my work. Did you want to see them?"

"Maybe later. They might help me understand this planet a little better."

"Let's go get 'em!" I said. "After my nap I feel up for a walk."

So the two of us slipped out the window and walked hand-in-hand in the direction of the barn.

"I have an idea," I said. "I know how we can help Loki."

"What's that?"

A mischievous grin spread across my face. "Well see, I have this mini tape recorder."

"Uh huh."

"And the volume can go really low to where your subconscious can hear it but your conscious mind can't."

"I like where this is going."

"More or less, I'm going to record messages on there telling my grandmother that she wants a cat. Then I'm going to slip it under her pillow and play the messages while she's asleep."

"Dude! Are you planning on doing that tonight? I wanna help!"

"Sure!"

"Yes! This is awesome! Are you sure it'll work?"

"I hope so. I've read a lot about subliminal messaging and mind control in my attempts to study Swayne."

"Hey! Maybe I could use subliminal messaging on my teammates and shit. Make Duke and Mallory a little less cocky. Better yet, I could get them to embarrass the crap out of themselves and say stupid stuff on TV."

I laughed. "I think all three Anaheim forwards are a little cocky."

"I'm not cocky. I'm confident."

"Denial ain't just a river ya know."

And so it went, us ribbing each other all the way up to the barn. We didn't bring a flashlight, since the moon was full. Unfortunately, the barn itself was quite dark and it took me a moment to find the little battery-powered lantern that I usually used there at night. Once I found it, we gathered up the books and walked back to the house.

"Do you ever see any Sasquatch around here?" asked Nosedive.

"I wish!" I replied. "I want Sasquatch to be real. But sometimes I doubt it. Nobody's ever found definite proof of one."

"That's just part of Bigfoot's shtick! It's a way to keep the fans interested. The moment Bigfoot's proven to exist, people are going to stop giving a crap. They'll be over it. There won't be any more specials on TV. There won't be any more speculation or hype. It's basically the same tactic Jax Flower has been using since '93."

I laughed. "You like Jax Flower?"

"Personally," said Nosedive, "I think he's a mega sleazoid. But he knows how to sing and how to work a crowd."

"My mom says he's a dick, but she used to sing his songs to me as a baby. I still listen to his stuff every night before I go to sleep. But I try not to listen to all the lyrics."

"Yeah, he's definitely got issues."

"Let's quit talking about it," I said. I wanted to live in denial a little bit longer about Jax Flower.

"I can nail his screams. Even if he is fuckin' glam, he does know how to scream."

"I'm not discussing it."

Soon, we were back in my room. I handed Nosedive some of the books. "I'm gonna go look for that voice recorder. If anyone comes in, just hide."

"Ok."

I went in my mom's room and into her closet, where a bunch of my old toys (and some actual real spy gear that my mom had ordered for me) were piled up in a bin. Within a few minutes, I found what I was looking for. I took it in my room and locked the door. "Alright," I said. "This is going to be great!"

Nosedive and I huddled together and tried to record simple messages like, "You want a cat. You want an amber colored cat," but instead we ended up laughing too hard and listening to our recordings sped up so that we sounded like chipmunks. We were lucky that my grandparents were deaf.

"We can make ourselves sound slow, too," I said, and we started recording ourselves and playing it back at half-speed, which made us sound either really stoned or really mentally challenged. Some of the comments we made were not exactly P.C. and now that I'm older and nicer I will not be repeating them here.

Finally, I said, "Ok. We have to get serious." I hit the record button and Nosedive said, "Billy Mays here. Do you ever feel lonely? Do you ever feel like dogs are too needy and codependent? Does your husband constantly make ridiculous demands? Are mouse traps not getting rid of your rodents? If you answered 'yes' then you need a cat! Yes, a cat! With a cat you will get no barking in the middle of the night! No turds in the floor! No 'make me a sandwich!' Cats are independent! They are intelligent! They get rid of common pests like rats and mice! It's only $19.95! And if you order NOW, You'll get a free sample of Oxi Clean to get rid of that stubborn cat piss. That's Oxi Clean! It has the power of bleach without the damaging side effects of chlorine. If you hurry, we'll throw in a second sample of Oxi Clean! Just call the number at the bottom of the screen! Must be 18 or older to order!"

I was doubled over in laughter. We must have listened to that about 100 times.

"I can make an even better one," he said.

"No," I insisted. "We really do need to get serious."

"I think that'll definitely make her want a cat. And Oxi Clean."

"Ok, I won't delete it. But it's my turn to record one."

We recorded at least an hour's worth of cat-related stuff. I recorded myself reading a sweet, tear-jerking story about a cat rescuing a family when their house caught on fire. If that didn't work, nothing would.

"I'll be right back," I told Nosedive. "I'm going to plant the device." I made sure that the volume on the recorder was turned low enough that she'd hear it in the back of her mind, but it wasn't loud enough to wake her up.

I tiptoed silently to my grandmother's room. She and my grandfather were snoring loudly. Carefully, I hit "play" on the device and placed it in the fake flower arrangement that sat on my grandma's bedside table.

"Penelope," she said.

I froze with fear.

"I'm running to the cigarette store," she continued. "Tell your graddad I'll be back."

Oh, good. She was just dreaming. Apparently she dreamt of cigarettes.

I crept out of her room without a sound and rejoined Nosedive in my room, making sure the door was locked. "Mission accomplished!" I said. He gave me five.

"I don't care what Wildwing says," he told me. "I think you were born to be a spy."

I beamed. "This spy would like a back massage."

"Back massage comin' up," he said. "Come here, sexy."

I scooted up in front of him.

"Rub on the outside of my shirt," I said. I didn't want to take things too far too soon.

He nodded and started with my shoulders, somehow being gentle and firm at the same time, loosening up those muscles that had tightened thanks to days full of jerkwad teachers and hateful students. It felt amazing.

Next, he started rubbing my neck. I wasn't expecting it to give me a sensation in my nether regions. It felt like…the way chocolate tastes. That's the only way I can describe it. It made me tingle everywhere.

"Ok," I said. "Go ahead and massage under my shirt, just don't touch my chest."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" I said, almost with a sense of urgency.

He reached under my shirt and started massaging my back.

I'd received back massages countless times from family members, and this was nothing like it. This was something completely new. It was almost like there was an electric current running through me. I didn't even lie to myself. I was aroused by an alien duck, and not for the first time. I'd felt similar feelings the very first day I met him, when I sat in his lap. But this time the sensation was 10 times stronger.

I turned to him and kissed him. I placed a finger on the tip of his bill. "No sex," I said. "Just touching." I reached in his shirt and massaged him as he continued caressing me. I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn't known a guy's touch could feel that way. I'd thought males were all brutish. I didn't know I could enjoy the male touch while still feeling strong and independent, feeling like me.

But I still wasn't ready for sex. I'd just met him, and it was likely he'd move back to his planet and find some female duck and never visit me again. I didn't want to get hurt.

"I think I'm ready to go to sleep," I said.

"You know me," he said. "I don't fall asleep till about four and then Wildwing usually wakes me up an hour later."

"I know," I said. "I remember reading an interview with you. It's why your pre-game nap is so important."

"Exactly. But I'll hold you, and stay alert for your grandparents. If they knock on the door I'll hop out the window."

"Alright," I said.

He took his shirt off and laid back against the pillows. I was kind of grateful that my grandmother always turned the thermostat on in the middle of summer: being from such a cold planet, Nosedive was pretty much guaranteed to take his shirt off.

I stared at his perfect body. If he had nipples, they were covered up by feathers, but other than that he was shaped pretty much like a human. It wasn't too unusual that I would be attracted to him.

I felt around on his chest. "You DO have nipples!" I proclaimed.

He laughed. "I don't know why," he said. "Our females are the only ones who make milk. Does everyone have nipples on this planet too?"

"Pretty much. All mammals do, anyway. Males and females. So are you guys birds or mammals?"

He shrugged. "We're ducks, but we're Kresan. I don't think there's a word for it in your language. You'd have to ask Tanya."

Very interesting. I rested my head on his chest and felt his heart beating rapidly. He was aroused too. I smiled to myself.

"I never knew this could be so wonderful, that a dude could think of a woman as an equal and still be turned on."

"I'm not Jax Flower," he replied. "No litter boxes here."

"What? …Nevermind. I don't want to know." And that was that. I didn't ask again, and he didn't tell me. I relaxed and savored his touch…


	18. Chapter 18

I woke up to my grandmother knocking on the door. "Just because you're suspended doesn't mean you can sleep all day!"

Nosedive was no longer in bed with me. Maybe he'd never been there to begin with. Perhaps the last few days were a hallucination. Why would the Ducks choose to land in my field and why would he be attracted to a human?

"I'll get up," I told my grandmother, wiping the crusty sleep out of my eyes. I got up and threw clothes on, relieved that no school meant no need to put thought into my outfit. I ran a brush over the first layer of my hair and left my room. My grandmother was in the kitchen making lunch. I snuck past her, into her room, and retrieved the voice recorder from her flower arrangement. Carefully, I took it to my room and hid it in a drawer.

"Are you hungry?" I heard Grandma ask.

I went back into the kitchen. "I'm good," I said. I got a pop tart and looked at the time on the oven. It was only noon. Doom wouldn't be out of school for several hours (I crossed my fingers that her parents didn't know I was suspended. I was already a "bad influence"). I'd be sure to call her the moment she got home and see if she could come over.

"How did you sleep?" I asked Grandma.

"I slept well," she said. "I kept dreaming about cats."

"Really? That's an odd coincidence, seeing as how I've been wanting a cat."

"We're not getting a cat!" Granddaddy barked from the living room.

"Oh, poo!" said Grandma. "I miss Sweet Pea! I think it's time we got a new cat."

I smiled so wide. "It just so happens I know of a stray cat who needs a home," I explained. "Loki is going to find her and bring her over."

"That's very nice of him," said Grandma. "There's so many homeless animals, it's much nicer to adopt one than to go to a breeder."

"I couldn't agree more."

I stuffed my face with pop tart as I walked outside. It was a beautiful day. I started to go to the barn and see if Nosedive was hanging at the barn, since it was kind of our base of operations, when I heard him call to me from up in a tree. He was reclined against a large branch with a comic book, topless, looking like a frisky forest elf.

I pulled myself up into the tree with him. "The messages worked! She's gonna let Amber move in!"

"Alright! Now I get to try it out on my teammates!"

I laughed. "Where are they, by the way? I hope you haven't been bored."

"I'm fine. They're going to meet us at Moka's soon so we can all hang out and watch him turn Loki into a shapeshifter."

I nodded. "I'll call Doom soon so she can come too."

Somehow I climbed on top of him and straddled him without messing up our balance and sending us crashing to the ground. The branches of the ancient tree were enormous, and comfortable enough to sleep on (which I had done many times).

"I still have work to do," I told him, "but I dread it. I want to spend as much time as possible with you before you leave."

"You could always do your work after we take Loki to New Mexico."

"True…I wish I could go to New Mexico. I've always wanted to see Carlsbad Caverns and watch the bats."

"If you come with us, we can go."

"You're such a bad influence…what would I tell my folks?"

"I donno. What would they do if you told 'em about us?"

"I can't tell her about me and you. She'll either say 'What the hell? He's an alien duck!' or she'll make this big embarrassing fuss. 'My daughter's dating now! My little girl is growing up! I'm so happy yet so sad!' and then she'll start drinking and call every single one of her friends and talk about how her baby girl is becoming a woman. I really don't want that."

He laughed.

"It's not funny dammit! They fuss over me all the time! My grandfather made a big fuss over the fact that I helped him fix the lawn mower! He was calling me his little helper even though I was 14 at the time! I felt like a poodle that won Best in Show at Westminster!"

"Sounds like my teammates. Whenever I'm good at something they act fucking surprised. I'm sick of being underestimated."

"Especially after proving yourself time and time again!"

"Exactly." He really was my soul-mate. We were both condescended to, all the time. Nobody seemed to get used to the fact that we are both very intelligent. He continued, "We can let your mom think we're just friends. I have tons of self-control."

"Somehow I doubt that. She'd walk in on us getting cozy with each other and she'd call Sherry, and Sherry would tell her daughter LaKeesha, and then Lakeesha would tell the people at the high school and they'd be all 'Penelope's finally acting like a girl! Penelope's finally conforming! Next she'll start wearing skirts and liking N'Sync. She's becoming NORMAL!' And I can't let the conformists think that they've won."

"You're name's Penelope?"

"Do not. Laugh."

"I won't. There's nothing wrong with your name."

"It's not my name. I disown it. People should get to choose their own names."

"You think so too? I thought I was the only one! When I have a kid I don't care if they wanna to be called Elfqueen fuckin' Sparklebottom. It should be the kid's choice."

For a moment I started to freak out. "When you have a kid?" Nosedive and I can't have kids.

"You know…if we adopt a kid."

I nodded. "So you won't call me Penelope?"

"I do that kind of shit with Thrash, but I won't do it to you. His real name is Ernie."

I had to laugh. It was definitely not a metal guitarist name. It immediately made me think of Sesame Street."

Call him "Ernie" all you like," I said, "But if you call me Penelope, I will boil you and pluck you."

"You can pluck this duck any time!"

"Hey now!"

"I'm just messin' with ya!"

"Better be."

"I'm not going to pressure you into sex or anything. But if you do decide to take things further, you know I'm up for it. Pun intended."

I knew so little about sex that the penis pun had hardly registered. "Well," I said shyly, "ccording to the books I got with Mookie, there can be sex without intercourse. There can be outercourse of various kinds. Maybe we already have had sex."

"We did play patty cake."

"I liked that neck massage. Let's go back in my room and do that again."

"OK!"

"Follow me and my folks won't see you. 'Cause if my grandfather saw you he would say 'put on a shirt and cut your hair!' He doesn't even want my mom to date and she'll be middle aged soon."

We snuck back in my room through the window and locked the door. First, I turned the TV on as loud as it would go so that nobody could hear us talking. Then we settled on the bed. We'd cuddled before, but it felt new every time. What was it about this new feeling that made me feel like my stomach was going to roll out of my body at any given minute? It wasn't a bad feeling. It was wonderful feeling. A thrill ride feeling. My body tingled before nosedive even touched it. When he began rubbing my shoulders, I thought I would melt into him and we'd become one.

I was fighting with my arousal when my grandmother knocked on the door. Nosedive hid in the closet just like he did the other day, and I let my grandmother in. She was holding an armful of clothes. "Here," she said. "You can put these underwear in your drawer and I'll hang these shirts and pants in the closet." Uh oh.

"Uh, you don't have to do that, Gramma!"

"Oh, poo. You should enjoy your youth. You'll be doing plenty of housework when you get married."

Yeah right.

Luckily, my closet has two little nooks on either side, neither one big enough to stand up in, but big enough to squat in. Nosedive managed to squeeze himself into one of those nooks while Grandma hung up the clothes.

"The floor of this closet looks like a pigpen," she said. She picked up a shoe and threw it in the dark nook.

Nosedive said "Fuck!" before he could stop himself.

"Is there someone in your closet?" she inquired.

"Nope," I said. "Just my old Furby. I taught it to cuss."

"That sounds like something you'd do," she said.

I nodded and said, "Yep."

Grandma left the room and I locked it behind her.

"Did you really teach your Furby to cuss?" Dive asked as he climbed out of the nook. "My friends say it can't be done. And believe me, they've tried."

"I tried too. I wanted to teach mine to say 'Eat shit and run rabbits,' but alas, it was not to be."

"That's too bad. Maybe I'll get you a parrot."

"I had one. They're super messy. But it's a sweet thought."

We sat on my bed and cuddled until four in the afternoon. Then I called Doom and asked her if she could come over.

"I'll have to call you back and let you know," she said. "You know how they are."

Indeed, her parents had trouble telling her 'no' while she was still on the phone with me, so if we stayed on the phone while she asked their permission to come over, they thought we were doing so in order to manipulate them into saying 'yes' and that I was "phonefeeding" her lies about where we would go and what we would do. They seemed to think I was Satan.

So I laid back on the bed with Nosedive, telling him all about Doom and her parents, when FINALLY she called back and said she could come over but that she couldn't spend the night. We'd have to cram in as much fun as possible before her parents blew their gaskets. It was nothing new, but this time it really sucked. You can't get to know a team of hockey playing aliens in just a few hours…


	19. Chapter 19

Nosedive decided he would go ahead and go to Moka's since it was easier to hide from my folks there. That's where the shapeshifter ceremony was going to be anyway. I let Dive get a head start before going with my grandfather to pick up Doom.

To my annoyance, Granddaddy had become a painfully slow driver in his old age. I could feel my hair growing as he meandered down Gobble Hollow slower than molasses on a cold day (that's why Grandma had started calling him Poke-Along Papaw).

The second we got back to my place, Doom jumped out of the car and began running to Moka's. "I can't wait for you to meet the Ducks!" I said. I was jumping around with excitement.

"Wait till I tell my brother!" she said. We practically teleported to the bat's trailer and bounded up his rickety steps in an instant. I banged on the door impatiently.

"Hey!" he said, and let us in. He was in human form, wearing a Ratt shirt and jeans.

Nosedive came and gave me a bear hug like he hadn't seen me in three years. Thrash, Mookie, and the members of Lava waved at us. There were musical instruments all over the place. Food wrappers and drink cans were strewn everywhere. Loki ran up and started pawing at us.

"The others aren't here yet," said Nosedive. "I guess they're too old to handle loud music."

"Ah well," I said.

"Let 'em be stiffs," said Mookie.

"So who is this bodacious babe?" asked Thrash. "I dig your Naruto headband." He gave the metal piece of the headband a gentle flick. Doom laughed. Not a happy laugh, but an awkward one.

"This is the Doomster," I said. "My best friend and keyboardist."

"Excellent." Thrash recognized her as a kindred spirit. "I'm Thrash."

"His real name's Ernie," said Nosedive.

Thrash turned bright red. "Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Dude, it is! Your mom told me it was!"

"She lies!"

"Nuh-uh."

"Oh, I won't judge you," Doom said. "It's just a name."

"Really?" asked Thrash. "Then…I will admit. That name, uh, Ernie…was my name. But nobody's called me that in years. I got the name Thrash because I would always go to hardcore punk shows in thrash metal shirts because I like both genres. The Snot Rocket guys used to give me shit about being the thrash metal guy hanging at punk shows, so they just started saying, 'Hey Thrash! Bang your head, you longhair! THRAAAAASH!' But I like the name. It has meaning. I was the only metalhead in my group of friends until Dive landed here." He gave Nosedive a friendly punch.

"Yeah," said Nosedive, "He's Thrash and I'm the Hesher from Space. That's what the Snot Rocket guys call us. I take it as a compliment."

"Your hair is longer than in the cartoon," Doom said to Thrash.

"Yeah…" said Thrash. "My mom told me if I grew my hair she'd kick me out of the house, so for a while I kept the mullet as a compromise. But she ended up kicking me out of the house anyway."

"I'm sorry," said Doom.

"It's alright," said Thrash. "At least with an apartment I can party."

"So," said Mookie, "Are you guys ready to jam? I can't wait to see what D.A. sounds like on the drums."

Nosedive didn't want to stand in the way of Thrash getting to know Doom, but he couldn't resist music either. "Fuck yeah!" he said. "Let's do this!"

"Sweet!" I exclaimed. "But I gotta show you some of my songs with Doom when you guys are done."

"Of course."

"I'm excited to hear all of it," said Moka. "History could be made in my living room."

"I just hope someone here can play jazz," said Loki. "That's what I want to hear when I'm turned into a shifter. Maybe a little swing or some crooner music."

"Jazz? Eew," said Mookie with a punk rock sneer.

"Hey," said Thrash, "Dave Mustaine likes jazz."

"He's also schizophrenic." Mookie started running through scales on her blue Eleca bass.

"That bass is so pretty!" said Doom in the same tone of voice she always used when she saw a cute kitten.

"Wanna play it?" asked Mookie.

"I've never really played bass," said Doom.

"Watch and learn," said Mookie. "Let's do our cover of 'Statement of Vindication' by Bikini Kill. "

Nosedive stepped up to the microphone. He said, "One thing I can say about Kathleen Hanna is that her vocals are raw as opposed to all this autotuned crap. But I still think punk would be better if they actually sang. Not many people can get away with singing without actually singing. It's the Lemmy/Paul Baloff effect. You have it or you don't."

I started to ask who Paul Baloff was, but thought better of it.

"He's got Glenn Danzig syndrome," said Mookie. "Thinks he's too good for punk."

"And when he starts ranting about autotune, you can't get him off the subject," said Thrash. "He goes on for like, hours, dude."

"Janis Joplin didn't need autotune! If they'd been able to overproduce shit back then, Janis Joplin and Robert Plant and all the greats would have sounded like fuckin' Britney Spears and that would be blasphemy."

"Do your job, singer," Thrash said, obviously teasing.

"Play the damn song then."

So they launched into some of the most rambunctious, rollicking music I'd ever heard. Considering she wasn't used to such fast music, D.A. was great at keeping up. But my favorite part was Nosedive. It's true, he didn't do the Bikini Kill song in a punk style. He had this controlled yet wild, raspy screech that made the song sound metal. They went on to play all kinds of things ranging from classic rock to thrash metal. Nosedive's raspy voice worked well for both: On the softer stuff he sounded like a satanic Steven Tyler. On the heavier stuff, he added more steel to his voice and became a rabid male banshee coming for your soul.

I'll never forget one of their first original songs – a horror punk style tune but with feral, sexy metal vocals. My favorite line was, "Alcoholic blood suckers comin' for me/ I got a .55 BAC." I wondered if Wildwing had heard that song. I sure wasn't going to tell him about it.

After that, Mookie said, "If you really want to hear some bass, listen to this. Cliff Burton was like, a total legend." She began playing 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Metallica. Back then, Metallica was the only thrash band I knew about. "I know this song!" I said. "Can I sing it?"

Nosedive said, "Sure" and sat on the couch. This seemed to shock his bandmates.

"He never lets anyone on the microphone," said Thrash. "You must give him some kind of massive, raging….Nevermind."

I don't know what gave me the sudden burst of confidence, but I swaggered up to the mic, adjusted it to my diminutive stature and nailed the song! I didn't even have to think about the words. I'd heard the song so many times, it just flowed out of me. I realized that I was born for that kind of music. I'd never felt so me! And D.A. did a good job too, since it was a song she actually knew. When the song was over, I felt dizzy and went to get some water from the faucet, but Moka shoved a warm cup of honey/lemon water into my hand instead.

"You don't need autotune either!" said Nosedive. "That was badass!"

"Yeah," said Doom. "You rock. And the bass in that song just makes me hyper!"

"I think I was born to do this kind of music," I said. "Even though I don't know jack crap about it. It just channels my aggression like nothing else in the world."

"You've definitely got the thrash sound," said Nosedive. "You're like, Mustaine or Hetfield before they got old."

"Let's show her our cover of 'Madhouse!'" said Thrash. "Your version is way grittier than Joey Belladonna."

"Not yet," said Nosedive. "I wanna hear her."

Heh. I didn't like being on the spot. "You guys should teach me some thrash songs. From now on, I'm gonna do thrash."

"Sorry babe," said Thrash. "I believe Dive has dibs on ya."

"That's not what I meant! And don't call me 'babe.'"

"Does thrash have keyboards?" asked Doom.

"Absolutely not," said Thrash, "And you must learn how to tell real thrash from fake thrash. Metallica quit being thrash after Kill 'Em all. I wouldn't call 'Bells' thrash. Allow us to show you the true metal so you can destroy the false metal." He took this very seriously.

Mookie handed Doom her bass and said "Here. I have an Ibanez at home. You should totally keep this so there can be more badass women in music."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I consider this riot grrl missionary work."

"Nice! Thank you Mookie!"

So Mookie proceeded to show Doom how to play 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' while Thrash played guitar and I sang. And that's how Doom and I became obsessed with Metallica. But the members of the Crash also showed us some other cool thrash bands. Since the bassist was obsessed with punk, the guitarist preferred metal, and the singer liked anything as long as he could sing it his way, the one thing they could all agree on was crossover thrash. Therefore, Doom and I were introduced to D.R.I., M.O.D., S.O.D., and Suicidal Tendencies.

They covered "Institutionalized," and it really struck home with me, being an angry teenager and all.

"We have to write something like this!" I said. And so, the "Grandma" song was born. Thrash wrote the guitar (he said we could use it as long as he was given credit for writing it) and Doom and I wrote the lyrics. I didn't even try to sing on that song. I borrowed some of Mookie's punk spirit and just ranted over the music. I played the part of Grandma, while Doom was me. The beginning went something like this:

Me: Girls, what are you up to!?

Doom: Noooooothing!

Me: Oh yeah!? Then why are there cushions in the floor.

Doom: Cause I put 'em there! Deal with it!

Me: Shut up and eat your porkchops!

Doom: But you dropped them on the floor before you put 'em on my plate!

Me: 10 Second Rule! There's nothing wrong with your pork chops!

Doom: That rule is bull! Ask the school nurse!

Me: Don't sass me kiddo!

Doom: Why's that, huh?

Me: Beeeecause I saidsooooooooooo!

The song probably sounded terrible. The lyrics were immature. But it was a ton of fun. The rest of the ducks came in as we were finishing it up. I'm glad they didn't hear the whole thing.

"It's loud in here," said Tanya.

"Cover some Pat Benatar and I'll stick around," said Mallory.

"Or do some jazz," said Duke. Apparently he and Loki had similar tastes.

"I'm glad everyone's having fun," said Wildwing. "Who's your friend, Fang?"

"Mighty Ducks, meet Doom. Doom, meet the Mighty Ducks. I hope you know their names."

"Of course," said Doom. "You guys are cool! Nosedive is less annoying in real life than in the show."

"Annoying?" said Dive. "You don't know charisma when you see it."

"They've been sounding killer!" said Moka. "We have the Satanic Steven Tyler and a lady Lemmy on our hands."

"Yes," said Wildwing. "Nosedive sings Aerosmith in the locker room all the time."

"Makes sense," said Moka. "Big ass lips. Duck bill. And it's cool hearing classic influence in heavier music. But you should be careful doing those screams." said Moka. "Steven Tyler's voice is shit these days."

"Not true!" said Nosedive. "Besides, he's smoked a lot of weed and meth. I don't do drugs."

"You just steal my liquor," said Duke.

"That reminds me," said Wildwing, "We need to talk about some things."

"Later," said Dive. "We're here to have fun and see Loki get bit by a shapeshifting bat."

"I can't do that until midnight," said Moka. "And if I don't do it at just the right time, we'll have to wait till the next full moon."

"Are you gonna suck his blood?" asked Thrash.

"I'm not a vampire," said Moka. "I'm a bat who turns into a human. I can turn into other things, but this is my favorite form because humans actually get some damn respect."

So of course, we all jammed and socialized and it got later and later. Lava even played some Pat Benetar songs so Mallory could sing them.

"Now there's someone who needs autotune," Nosedive said, still on his autotune kick.

"Well you sound like a dying cat," hissed Mallory.

"A cat getting it on," Nosedive retorted. "There's a big difference."

Around 10:00 PM, Moka made some Duck friendly food – ham biscuits – and after we ate, we all swapped stories. Moka's guitarist Derrick had plenty of stories about waking up in strange places during the 80's, and D.A. told us about how her son Bugs had been conceived at a backstage orgy. With all of Lava's wild stories, I completely forgot that it was a weekday and that Doom's parents might be expecting her to come home soon.

Finally, it was 11:30, so we all went outside under the moon, where Moka turned into a bat right before everyone's eyes.

"How is that possible?" said Tanya. She was fascinated, and resisting her temptation to study Moka.

"For that matter," she said, "How does Chameleon shapeshift? It can't be magic."

"You mean you still don't believe in magic?" said Nosedive.

"If magic was real," said Tanya, "I'd turn you into a toad."

Thrash kept his eyes on his watch.

We all stood in a circle around Moka and Loki, pregnant with anticipation until finally, Thrash announced it was a minute till midnight. He began counting the seconds.

I started singing "Swing Mr. Charlie" because it's the type of song Loki likes.

Then, right as the clock struck 12, Moka dug his teeth into Loki's neck. I had to stop singing. The Chihuahua howled in pain and I wanted to pick him up and hold him. But in a second the worst of the pain was gone.

"Nothing happened," said Loki. "I thought there would be a big sparkly swirl of magic and I'd become a duck."

"Doesn't work that way," said Moka as he turned back into a human. "All I did was give you the ability to shift. But I can't shift for you, you have to do it on your own. You have to focus your mind and think 'duck.'"

"Like a meditation?" asked Grin.

"Yeah," said Moka. "That's a good way to describe it."

"Ok then," said Loki. "But I need swing or jazz."

I didn't know any more, so I looked at Nosedive. He shrugged.

"I know that Dino Spumoni song from Hey Arnold," he said. I laughed.

"No," said Loki. "Nothing that will make me laugh."

So Nosedive began the gross game. "Asparagus dipped in ass cheese." Loki's little body jiggled with laughter.

"Brains full of maggots dumped into a bathtub," I said. Loki's eyes narrowed.

"Crabs," said Thrash. "Crawling into a crusty pimple on your ass."

Mookie howled and gave him five. "Dark green puss coming from Dragaunus's-"

"Enough!" shouted Loki. "Let me focus!"

Reluctantly, everyone calmed down and quit teasing Loki. Finally free to think, he closed his eyes and thought "duck."

Then shabam! He was a Duck! A naked Duck. Well, at least then I knew for sure Nosedive didn't have a corkscrew down there. Loki shyly covered his junk with his hands.

We all stared awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to do, when my mom walked up behind our little circle and gasped.

"The Mighty Ducks!" she exclaimed. "How coooool!"

"Hey Mom," I said. "What brings you here?"

"Doom's parents called. They want her home ASAP."

"Oh. Shit. I thought you had work."

"I accidentally slept through my alarm. I guess I'll just call in sick. At least now I get to hang out with the Mighty Ducks! I love you guys as long as you aren't playing Detroit."

"I'm pleased to hear that," said Wing.

"Yeah," said Mal. "It's nice to meet you."

"I see where your luscious daughter got her looks," said Nosedive, and I elbowed him.

"Thanks," said Mom. "Maybe you guys could come have a beer after I take Doom home."

"We'd love to!" said Dive.

"I don't drink," said Wildwing, "but I'm sure Duke and Mallory will take you up on your offer."

"Alright," she said. "So who's the new guy on the team?"

"Oh, that's Loki," I said casually. "He can shapeshift now."

"He's actually a duck," said Nosedive.

Loki gave an embarrassed laugh and turned back into a dog.

My mom wasn't in the least bit fazed. "Now that you're an alien duck," she said, "you can help me paint my living room."

"OK," said Loki. "By the way, I have a wife named Amber. She's a cat and she's been napping in the loft because she's pregnant. She doesn't know I'm a duck yet."

"Also," I told Mom, "The Ducks are going to New Mexico tomorrow. I was hoping I could go with them so I can see Carlsbad Caverns."

We were all bombarding Mom with all this unbelievable news at once. But all she did was sigh. She'd seen crazier things. "We can talk about that after I take Doom home." She said. "I'm just a little bit overwhelmed."


	20. Chapter 20

I probably should have gone with Mom to take Doom home, but I couldn't pry myself away from Nosedive.

After Mom left with Doom, Moka told Loki, "Go on inside, and I'll find you some clothes to wear for when you turn into a duck."

The redheaded rocker and the Chihuahua went into the trailer while the rest of us waited outside beneath the starry sky.

"Your mom seems cool," said Nosedive.

"Yeah, nothing really surprises her anymore. We've seen all kinds of crazy things."

"I hope she lets you go to New Mexico."

"Me too!" I held Nosedive tightly. I wanted to keep our relationship on the down low, but it was already pretty obvious to the other Ducks, and we'd more or less told Thrash and Mookie.

Moka and Loki stayed in the trailer for what felt like eons. I doubted Moka would have anything that Loki would want to wear. Even the suits that he wore during his mayoral duties were doctored up to look rockstarish.

Finally, Moka came out with Loki, who was a duck again. Loki was wearing black leather pants and a WASP shirt. "This is not my style," said Loki.

"It's all I have," said Moka.

Duke laughed. "Now that's some class!" Loki blushed beneath his feathers.

"I'll take you shopping, Silverwing." Wildwing promised Loki.

"Do you guys want to walk on up to the house?" I asked the Ducks.

"Will your mom mind us being there before she gets back?" Wildwing asked, always trying to do the right thing.

"She won't mind."

"Well, I'm sure Moka doesn't want us to leave the Aerowing in his yard. Can we fly it to our usual spot and then meet you at your house?"

I told him it was OK. So, we thanked Moka for the great night and then Wildwing, Tanya, Mallory and Duke boarded the Aerowing. Loki, Thrash, Mookie, Nosedive and myself went to my house on foot. I let them in through the front door, which opened up to the dining room. On the table was a sticky note where my grandmother had written "Oxi Clean" and the number for ordering it. I showed it to Nosedive and nobody knew why we were laughing about it.

"Everyone make yourselves at home," I said. Our living room is massive and has two couches and two chairs, so everyone had a place to sit. I made sure they all had drinks and snacks.

"I love your house," said Mallory.

"Yeah," said Wildwing, "It reminds me of a ski resort."

"We have enough mountains and hills to turn it into one."

"That reminds me," said Nosedive, "we need to finish our slip n' slide."

"After Loki's mission," said Tanya, "we'll be pretty busy."

"Aw C'mon," said Nosedive. "All we need is a few more hoses and we'll be done."

Then my mom walked in the door, ever cheerful. "Hi guys!" she said. "Sorry I took a while. Doom's parents are pretty pissed off. You guys didn't tell them you were going to be hanging out with friends, so I had to lie and tell 'em I bought her that bass. Somehow I doubt they'd take well to the idea of their daughter at a trailer with a rock star, a bunch of hockey players, and Thrash and Mookie. No offense. Doom's parents aren't as cool as me!"

"Thanks for lying for her," I said.

"I won't do it every time," Mom warned.

Amber jumped down from the loft and rubbed against my mom's legs.

"That's my wife," said Loki. "Amber, this is Anna, Fang's mom."

"You're not my husband!" said Amber. "My husband is a dog, not some six foot duck dressed like he should be in Motley Crue!"

"And here's where the shit hits the fan," said Nosedive.

"I AM a dog," he said. "And a duck! And these aren't my clothes!" he shifted back to Chihuahua form and crawled out from Moka's clothes.

"I can't believe this!" said Amber. "You're a shapeshifting rock star that's had God knows how many groupies and you didn't even have the audacity to tell me!"

"I'm not a rock star," Loki insisted. "These aren't my clothes!"

"I don't know what to think!" cried Amber. "And to think I was gonna move in with you! Lying to your pregnant wife! Hm!" She ran out the door.

"Sorry about the scene," Loki told us. "Let me go talk to her and work this out." He went after Amber.

The rest of us just felt awkward.

"So," began my mom, "what's this about New Mexico?"

Wildwing opened his bill to speak.

"I'll handle this," said Nosedive, knowing his brother couldn't tell a lie to save his life. "We're going to Roswell to put in an appearance for the UFO buffs."

"Sounds fun!" said Mom.

"We feel that introducing humans to people from an egalitarian planet is a good way to dismantle the WCP," said Mookie. "Alien buffs might actually be willing to listen."

"The WCP?" I asked, feeling dumb.

"The White Capitalist Patriarchy."

"…Oh. So, can I go with 'em?"

"You need to be doing your school work," Mom said. "Suspension is not a vacation."

"I promise I'll do my work on the Aerowing on the way to New Mexico, and in the hotel room."

"Do you have money for a hotel room?"

"She can stay in my room," said Mallory. "I've been meaning to teach her some self-defense. That would be a good time to do it."

I smiled. "Thanks, Mal."

Mom liked the Ducks and she seemed to trust them, so she agreed to let me go with them as long as I stayed with Mallory or Tanya as opposed to one of the dudes. She gave me some money so I wouldn't have to bum off of the team.

At some point, Loki came back in and said, "I think Amber just needs time to get used to me being a duck. I think she'll decide to go ahead and move in once the shock is over."

"I'm not even used to you being a duck," said my mom.

Loki sighed. "I do have a lot of explaining to do." He told her everything about the wizard turning him into a dog, and how he remembered what he actually was. He explained that he wanted to befriend the ducks and arranged for them to visit, but he left out the part about the portal.

Mom seemed to accept everything he said. After all, she's been to a magical world full of book and cartoon characters, so all this alien duck stuff didn't seem too far-fetched.

That night, the Ducks stayed with us, although that meant that I had to sleep with Mom so that some of them could have my bed. It was hard to sleep knowing that Nosedive was in the house and I couldn't stay in a room with him. It was easier to have time with him before Mom met him! I wished he was still my sweet little secret.

The next day, Mom woke me up around 7. "Your friends are getting ready to go," she said. "You need to get up."

I groaned. I'd barely slept. The one thing that motivated me to get up so damn early was the thought of being with Nosedive. Let's face it, I was obsessed. I forced myself up and went looking for him. After all, he'd seen me in pajamas before.

Incidentally, he was the only one still asleep. He was topless on the couch with one arm hanging over the edge and the others were standing around in the living room. Grandma was in the kitchen making blueberry muffins.

"I like your friends," she said. "Hockey players seem to be much more intelligent than football players."

"Should we wake him yet?" asked Tanya, looking at Nosedive.

"Wake him," said Wing.

"I'll wake him," I said. I sat down on the edge of the couch and said "Hey." I didn't want to be too flirty in front of everyone. He woke up immediately, and put his arm around me, somewhat disoriented having just woken up.

"You're in the living room," I said.

"Oh. Shit." He took his arm off of me. I longed for him to put it back, but at the same time, I didn't want my folks to see.

He slowly sat up, picked up his faded Led Zeppelin shirt from the floor, put it on and said, "I vaguely remember your grandfather coming in some time last night and standing over me."

"Did he just stare? He does that sometimes."

"He did for about three minutes. I could hear him breathing like Darth Vader and then he poked me and told me to put a shirt on. Which I did. But I took it off after he left."

I couldn't contain my laughter. Bless his heart, my grandfather can be scary at times.

"I'm gonna get some fresh air," he told his teammates. "It's hot in here." I followed him outside and we went around the side of the house where much groping and tongue action ensued.

Urgently, our hands explored the top halves of each other's' bodies. I wasn't ready to go below the waist yet, and he respected that. Nonetheless, I couldn't deny the fact that I was having feelings in other places. There was an urge to grind my body against his.

And then we heard Wildwing say "Come on, little bro! Silver's almost ready to go!"

We separated right before Wildwing came around the corner. My heart was beating out of my chest and Nosedive's probably was too.

"We're ready," I said breathlessly.

"Ok," said Wildwing. "Hurry or there won't be any muffins left." He walked away, sensing that we might want a last moment of privacy.

I yanked Nosedive back to me, wondering where all my sudden sexual assertiveness was coming from. "I want you so bad," I said. "But I'm afraid at the same time."

"I want you so bad it's killing me!" he said.

"I know." With his body against mine, I could literally tell. Suddenly I was embarrassed and looked away. My awkwardness about sex wouldn't disappear all at once.

"With the way a lot of humans have sex, I can understand you being afraid. We can go slow. We don't have to go all the way. We can always-"

"Don't get too graphic, please."

"Being horny is nothing to be ashamed of. When Robert Plant lived with John Bonham, Bonzo would walk in on Robert jerking off on his couch and he'd just go on with his business like it was nothing."

"I am not basing my sex life on Led Zeppelin."

"I don't think Robert was sexually violent. I think that was mostly Jimmy Page. But I could be wrong. I haven't finished reading Hammer of the Gods yet."

"Well, please don't tell me the violent parts. I hear enough of that from the kids in computer class."

We went back inside and I hastily threw some clothes in an old plastic dollar store bag. "I'm ready," I declared.

"Here's some muffins for the road," said Grandma. She'd put a bunch of muffins in a freezer bag.

Before we headed out to the Aerowing, Mom called me into her bedroom.

"Yes?" I asked.

"I just wanted to talk to you before you left," she said. "I think Nosedive is crazy about you."

I couldn't make eye contact with my mom.

"You think he's crazy about me?" I asked.

Mom nodded. "He called you luscious, honey. And I see how he looks at you. He really, really likes you. How do you feel about him?"

"Uh…" nervous sweat dripped from by brow. "I don't know. He's nice."

"He seems like a nice guy," she said. "And I think you might like him the way he likes you. So I thought I would send you with some condoms just in case you two get carried away. I don't think he could get you pregnant, but he might have some alien diseases."

"Mom! I don't want to talk about this! You know how I am about sex."

"I don't know what made you feel the way you do about sex," said Mom. "We've always lived in a sexually open family. It's not like we raised you to be ashamed of your sexuality."

"I know," I said. "It's not family that makes me weird about sex, it's the kids at school. It's…I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, if you ever do want to talk, I'm here. And please take these condoms just in case."

She handed me some condoms. I sighed and put them in my pocket. "I love you Mom." I gave her a hug.

"I love you too. Be careful."


	21. Chapter 21

The Aerowing was loaded with people. I sat in Nosedive's lap and Loki sat in Grin's, in dog form. Thrash and Mookie shared the seventh seat, which was awkward for them since they weren't a couple.

"Oh, well," Nosedive told them. "You're in a band together. You may end up having to share a bed in hotel room. Metallica did that lots of times."

I wondered if that meant Nosedive might one day sleep next to Mookie. I hoped not.

I asked Loki if he had a plan concerning breaking into Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"Yes," he said. "I have a plan. I'll explain that later. I don't want to give away all my secrets."

"But you can trust me!"

"Yes, but it's unprofessional to give every detail. What if you were the chameleon?"

Borrowing my grandmother's phrase, I said, "Oh, poo!"

Dive decided to change the subject. "Let's listen to music."

"Music makes it hard to concentrate," said Wildwing.

"Heavy metal disturbs my inner peace," said Grin.

"You're no fun," Nosedive jeered.

"I think you should let me help with your mission," I said to Loki. "I'm getting pretty good. I successfully framed Marcus and my subliminal messaging made Grandma OK with your wife moving in."

"You are learning," Loki admitted. "But it's easier for one Chihuahua to go unnoticed than it is for a Chihuahua and a human. I'm planning on sneaking around the building via the air ducts."

"Oh." I'm small, but some air ducts were too narrow for even me to fit in.

"Well," said Thrash, "I'm glad we're going to New Mexico. I've always wanted to go."

"Yeah," said Mook. "I wish we really were going to a UFO convention. Maybe we can take a trip to Roswell."

"But you already live in Anaheim," said Wildwing. "There's far more alien activity in Anaheim than there is in Roswell."

"I wanna see the Grays," said Thrash. "There's Grays in New Mexico."

"I'll take an alien duck over a Gray any day," I said.

It took forever to get to New Mexico, even though the Aerowing is a little faster than an Earth plane. As we flew over the land I saw that New Mexico was way different than Tennessee. It was very rugged, with lots of mesas, deserts and forests. Some of these forests weren't as dense as the ones at home, and they reminded me of the head of a balding man. Instead of hairs, he had identical pine trees.

The hotel we picked was a cute little place called North Trail Inn. Nosedive and Loki got a room to share. I roomed with Tanya and Mallory. Thrash and Mook got a room of their own. Grin got a room by himself, and Wildwing shared a room with Duke.

Once everyone got settled in, Loki called us into the room he shared with Nosedive. He was in duck form. Tall, with black hair, silver feathers, and a black bill.

"Ok," Loki announced. "I'm heading out. Nobody call me. I will make all the calls. Unless you don't hear from me for three days. Then come looking for me."

"Gotcha." Everyone nodded and expressed agreement.

Loki/Silverwing got up from his set and said, "Goodbye everyone. Wish me luck."

"Don't get killed," I said, concerned.

"Yeah," said Dive. "We like you."

"And no rookie mistakes," Duke added.

"No need to worry about that," said Loki. We all said "bye" and saw him off as he went out the door.

Loki's POV

When I exited the hotel, it was getting dark. I went behind the building and turned into a dog. If anyone saw me, they would hopefully put it down to a hallucination. But I don't think anyone saw me.

I was much faster on two legs than four. People would see me, but they wouldn't think I was going anywhere important. Humans believe they are the only creatures of Earth who can think. I was actually grateful for their human-centric ways. They'd assume I was either a stray, or someone's pet on his way home to get some kibble.

I'd already seen a map of the area. I had committed it to memory days ago. I didn't go to the laboratory. Not yet. I went toward the home of Matthew Bentz.

According to my research, Matthew Bentz was rumored to be working with antimatter and trying to perfect an interdimensional portal opening gun. Of course, he denied these claims, but the conspiracy theorists continued to speculate. All I could do was hope that the crazy conspiracy theorists had grounds for their beliefs. If any human in the U.S. was developing portal tech, it was most likely him.

I had to get his scent. How else would I find him in such a massive laboratory?

On the way to his yard, several cars stopped so that kids could get out and try to catch me. Kids would run up to me and say, "Come here doggie! I want to pet you! Yo quiro Taco Bell!" but I had no time for that. I couldn't risk them catching me and trying to "adopt" me.

The scientist's address had been easy to find. All I'd had to do was look up his tax records.

Once I found his yard, I settled in the bushes beneath a window. Chihuahuas can't smell as well as Beagles and we aren't as good at long-range tracking, but I could definitely catch a whiff of the human when sniffing around his house. I have a memory like an elephant. I knew I wouldn't forget the scent.

I decided to hang around while in the bushes. My legs and feet were sore. Besides, it gave me time to learn about the target.

He was at home. I could hear his TV on. He was watching M*A*S*H reruns. Who'd have thought? I guess it's dumb to assume they only watch the science channel.

One thing that struck me as odd was the fact that Bentz lived alone. I could smell female humans that he'd probably brought home for a good time, but there was no sign of a wife or children. You'd expect a successful scientist to have a family, unless maybe he had secrets that were too big, secrets that would make a family a liability.

Soon I was overtaken by the warm New Mexico air and began drifting off. Even the nights were warm. It felt so nice when I was in Chihuahua form, though I'd hate it in Duck form.

I don't know how long I dozed, but I woke up to the sound of Bentz talking to himself. "Time to call Lee," he said. A moment later, he was on the phone. "Kim Lee?" he said. "Yes, yes, this is Bentz…Yes, it is me, sir. I'm watching M*A*S*H, as per usual. I was calling to tell you that it is ready. I've made the portal machine much more compact now. The Blueprints are at the lab, but if you meet me at Roscoe's tomorrow after seven I will have them for you on a floppy disc. …Yes, Roscoe's. The patrons will be drunk. They won't notice our exchange. Besides, the women at Roscoe's are always up for some fun."

What had I just stumbled into? Bentz was talking to former Los Alamos scientist Kim Lee! Kim Lee was in the news not long ago. He'd just been released from prison. As the story goes, he'd been locked up for handing nuclear secrets over to China and now he was out!

I realized that he must still be working for China, and that Bentz must be selling secrets to him for some extra cash so that he could keep up his apparent playboy lifestyle.

This was big.

I wondered if I could sneak in the lab and retrieve the blueprint before Bentz went to work the next morning. If not, I'd just have to wait until later and catch up with Bentz and Lee at the bar, and hope that my pickpocket skills were good enough to get the floppy disc then.

Meanwhile: Fang's POV

I was reclining against some pillows when Mallory asked, "So, you wanted me to teach you to fight?"

"Sure," I replied.

Mallory was, without a doubt, the best fighter on the team. No matter how intimidating she was, I wouldn't let myself back out.

"Ok," she said. "Have you had any previous training?"

"Nope. Well, I've punched bullies before. And I tried some martial arts classes, but I have trouble memorizing forms."

"You'll definitely need to learn some forms," she said.

I groaned. "Can't you just show me some pressure points?"

"You said you wanted to know how to fight. I'm going to teach you how to fight."

"I think I have potential to be good," I said. "When I'm angry or threatened, sometimes I'm just so full of rage I lose all fear and ability to feel pain. I get this pens and needles feeling and I think I might even get stronger. But, only a little bit stronger. No matter how much I Hulk out, I'm still ridiculously tiny."

"You're only a few inches shorter than me," said Mal.

"True…and you're kick ass. Do you ever start feeling that prickly pins-and-needles feeling when you're really angry? Do your feathers kind of stand on end?"

"No, but sometimes I see red."

"Ah…I thought everyone got like I do. Ok. Show me what I need to learn."

And so, Mallory spent a good two hours working with me on my stance and showing me some exercises to improve my balance. She was impressed with my punching technique, but I still had a long way to come on my kicking because my balance was really bad. She taught me to tuck my toes in a little bit so I wouldn't hurt them when kicking.

Tanya watched us and tried to cheer me on, but she kept getting distracted by an issue of Popular Mechanics.

She was impressed with my progress, so she decided to give in and teach me little bit about pressure points.

"I hope pressure points are the same on humans as they are on Ducks," she said. "I don't want to teach you wrong."

She taught me about one place where you can hit somebody on their head and it only takes fifteen pounds of pressure to kill them.

"Do not use that unless you absolutely have to in order to save yourself," she warned me. "We don't believe in killing and I hope you don't either."

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm a little better at controlling my temper now than I was during puberty." When I was around 12 and 13, I was always losing control of my temper and beating the bullies to a pulp. I always "won" the fight, but that's not because I was strong. It's because the teacher or principal would always break it up before the bully had a chance to punch me back. I'm so small that I'm sure it wouldn't take much to lay me up in the hospital.

At around 14, I finally found a way to suppress my temper, although I can't explain how. I still get inklings of the rage for a few seconds, but I (almost) always snap out of it.

After all the training Mallory put me through, I felt accomplished and pleasantly sleepy. I laid back on my bed and turned the TV on while Mal and Tanya crashed in the other bed. They were asleep almost instantly.

Thankful that I was still awake, I began to creep towards the door. I was yearning for Nosedive. I had to be with him.

But as soon as I opened the door, Mallory's head show up.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Uh…"

"Your mom wanted you to stay in here with me and Tanya."

"Heh." I scratched my back nervously. "My mom sorta changed her mind about that. That's why she gave me these. Not that I'm going to be using them." I took the condoms out of my pocket.

Mallory got out of bed and came to see what I was holding. "Are you sure your mom gave you those?"

"Yes. Remember when she called me in for a private talk? But I'm not going to use them. I'm not into sex. I just want to see Nosedive. OK?"

"Hm. I don't want your mom pissed at me."

"She doesn't have to know."

"She is your mother. She does have a right to know."

"Then call her and tell her. I promise, she won't mind."

"Deal."

I gave Mallory my mom's number and then took off down the hall and knocked on Nosedive's room.

"Hold on," he said.

"It's me."

At that, he came right to the door and let me in, giving me a big hug. "I was hoping you'd come!"

"I knew you decided to room with Loki so we could have some alone time while he's out doing his thing."

"You know me well."

We climbed onto the bed and held each other. "Whatcha been doing?" I asked him.

"Thinking about you. And channel surfing."

"I've been learning to fight. And thinking about you." I kissed him. Before I met him, I'd had no idea that the edges of a duck's bill (at least one of his kind) were kind of soft. It was nice (on him, anyway. I am not attracted to Earth ducks.) I ran my fingers through his hair. Hair is so sensual to me. "I want to brush it," I whispered.

"There's a brush in the bathroom," he said gently.

I jumped up and retrieved the hair brush. He moved to the edge of the bed and I sat behind him, with my legs wrapped around him, and began brushing his hair. The position felt very intimate.

While I brushed his hair, we shot the shit and he flipped through the TV channels. It was late, and most of the channels were now showing infomercials. We both had to laugh when we came across the OxiClean commercial, but we didn't linger on it for long. He went ahead and flipped it to the next channel over.

He immediately began laughing. I peeked over his shoulder and looked at the TV. They were showing all sorts of, shall we say…adult personal devices. No matter how squeamish I was about sex, I couldn't tear my eyes away. Some of these sex toys had hilarious names, while others were quite disturbing. One massive object was called the Conquistador 2000.

"Of course," I remarked. "Things shaped like penises have to be given conquer-y names because they're tools of domination in our society."

"It's not like that on my planet," Nosedive reminded me.

I squeezed him tighter with my legs. "What is it like on your planet?"

"It's whatever you want it to be. I mean, I guess. I've never had sex with anyone besides myself, so…"

"You're a virgin!? With those looks?!"

"Hey, I might be hot, but most of the girls on my planet think I'm crazy. They'd rather have some cookie cutter, ideal student like Canard than someone who believes in Drake DuCaine and hangs out with the weirdos."

"But you're so hot! And a little bit cocky. I don't believe you're a virgin."

"Well, I almost had sex with someone once after I came to Earth. They left that out of the show."

"Lucretia?"

"No comment."

"Well, it doesn't matter to me. It wouldn't change how I feel about you. I can't believe we're both virgins. You're the star of the team! And you're gorgeous! You could have any woman you want."

"I want you!"

"I want you too!"

We repositioned so that we were facing each other. I started kissing him all over and he started taking my shirt off. I was breathing heavily, and thoroughly excited, but I was also afraid.

"Wait!" I said. "I'm not sure I want to do this yet." I knew he wasn't like Earth guys, but I was still nervous about the idea of sex.

"Ok," he said. "I'll wait as long as you want."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Meanwhile: Loki's POV

"I still got it," I said to myself as I crawled through the air ducts at LANL. I had called Duke and gotten him to meet up with me in a dark alley close to, but not on, LANL property. He'd given me a grappling hook and other breaking and entering supplies which I pulled behind me in a bag. He'd wanted to come with me, but I'd said no. I insisted that he stay nearby, but not on laboratory grounds, just in case I needed backup.

Crawling through the ducts, I was glad Duke hadn't come. Not only would a giant duck draw attention, he was just too big to fit. The lab had small air ducts precisely so that no one could sneak in through them. But they wouldn't keep out a five pound Chihuahua (I was supposed to be three pounds, but what can I say? I love food!)

There were several different buildings, but I'd entered the one that smelled most like Matthew Bentz. Every time I came to a vent, I would sniff the room below. There were multiple rooms that smelled like this Bentz character. Hell, the bathrooms smelled like tons of people.

There were so many rooms, so much space to cover. The night wasn't getting younger. Finally, I settled on a room that seemed particularly important and removed the vent. It wasn't bolted down. Carefully, I lowered myself down onto counter. The counter spanned three sterile-looking white walls. To one side of me was a computer, to the other side was a sink. There were cabinets all over the walls. On a table in the center of the room was a bizarre looking gun. That must be the portal generator! Too bad it was too large to fit through the air ducts. It was probably heavier than me.

I turned into a duck and put on some rubber gloves that were on the counter. The feathers on my fingertips were thin, and I didn't want to leave fingerprints. Using my nimble duck fingers, I took the tape out of the surveillance camera and put it in my bag. The scientists would realize it was missing, but when it came out that Bentz was working with Lee, he would be blamed. Nobody would suspect a five pound dog.

Once the camera was taken care of, I went to the computer and checked to see if it had a floppy disc in it. There wasn't one. The disc was probably in the drawer below the computer, but the drawer was locked. I began going through the cabinets looking for some kind of tool to pick the lock with, when I discovered some strange canisters. Did they contain antimatter?

I put a canister in my bag. Tanya might need it. Then, I went to the portal generator and inspected it. Yep, it was too heavy for me to carry out in dog form, and probably wouldn't fit through the vent anyway.

Right as I sat the generator down, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Someone was probably headed to the room I was in. I shoved my bag into the air duct. Then, I turned back into a dog and climbed up my rope. Cautiously, I replaced the vent. I peered through the vent and saw a young blonde woman in a lab coat enter the room. Right behind her was Bentz with a cup of coffee.

"At least someone besides me likes to get an early start," he told the woman.

"I'm excited about this project," she said. "The huge, closet-sized teleportation rooms were a pain in the ass. All I have to do is work out a little bit and I can carry that gateway generator with me everywhere I go."

"It is a little clunky," said Bentz. "But a newer, smaller one is just around the corner." He turned the computer on.

The woman hefted up the gateway generator and aimed it at the wall. She pressed a button and then a swirly black hole began to appear several yards in front of her. "I'd hate to see a regular citizen get one of these," she said. "They'd leave it on too long and the black hole would grow until it swallowed up the whole planet. Then two universes would collapse on each other and 'KABOOM!'" She turned the device off, and the hole disappeared.

"Don't even joke about that," said Bentz. "If these things ever do go on the market, people will have to acquire a license first."

"The pro-gun people will hate that. I can see the anti-portal-control activists now."

Bentz laughed and put the floppy in the computer. I realized my best chance to get the floppy would be at the bar, so I went ahead and left the laboratory.

To my relief, Duke was still waiting for me in the dark alley.

"'Bout time," he said, sucking on a tooth pick. "I need some coffee. So. How'd it go?"

"Boy, do I have news!"


	22. Chapter 22

I woke up to Loki peering down at me and saying, "Get up! There have been developments!" Nosedive groaned. He was snuggled up as close to me as he could get. At least we weren't naked, but I was still embarrassed. I shot out of bed.

"What's going on?" asked Nosedive as he sat up.

"The target has been located. I must go and take care of some things soon. I thought Fang might want to come with me."

"What about the Dive?"

"You would attract too much attention. This is a chance for Fang to get some experience. And that is all I will say here."

Suddenly, I forgot my embarrassment. I was too excited to worry about Loki seeing me and Nosedive snuggled up. I was finally going to get some field experience! I picked up my plastic department store bag of junk and went to the bathroom to change into some clean clothes.

"What time is it?" I asked when I emerged.

"Three in the afternoon," said Loki. "You missed breakfast. I tried to wake you two up sooner, but you were out cold."

"First good sleep I've had in a while," said Nosedive.

"Oho!" said Loki, who winked.

"It's not because of that," I said. "We didn't do what you think we did."

"So ya sure I can't come?" asked Dive.

"There will be no Ducks on this trip," said Loki. "Maybe you can take Thrash and Mookie to an arcade or something. Maybe you can find a UFO convention."

'I guess I should," said Dive. "They probably think I've forgotten 'em. When are you two leaving?"

"We have some time," said Loki. "If you want, I can order us all a pizza first."

"You read my mind," said Nosedive.

So everyone congregated in Loki and Nosedive's room for lunch. Loki gave the others a very vague explanation of what all would be going down. I didn't even understand it. Before Loki and I left, Nosedive got me to promise that I'd be safe. We made sure to get some tongue action in when nobody was looking, just in case I didn't return from whatever perilous journey Loki had in store.

When Loki and I were outside the hotel, I picked Loki up (he was in dog form) and he explained things in a very quiet voice as we walked. "I found something out last night," he said. "This scientist is selling secrets to that Lee guy who works for China. They're going to be meeting up at a bar called Roscoe's soon. At Roscoe's, Bentz plans to give Lee the blueprint for the gateway generator. But we're going to steal it first."

"How?"

"You're going to distract the bar patrons while I do some oldschool pick pocketing."

"Let me guess, you want me to use my 'feminine wiles.'"

"No, I know that's not your style. Just think of something. I know you can."

"What if I get kicked out of the bar? I'm underage!"

"Just act confident, like you belong there. Pretend it's the bar in Toon Town."

"I'll try."

"You can do this," said Loki. "This isn't the same as sneaking in LANL. Its beginner stuff. A good place to start. Judging by the way you framed Marcus, I know you can do this."

I walked along the sidewalk in the direction that Loki told me. Soon we were in front of the bar, a homey-looking bar with a red sign that said "Roscoe's." Sitting on a stool outside the bar was a guy checking ID's.

"I can't do this," I whispered to Loki. "I don't have an ID. And I look way young."

"Take in your surroundings," he whispered back.

I kept on walking past the bar, trying to look casual. Then I cut down an alley, went back towards the bar, but came to the side instead of the front. Right then, a big blue van pulled up by the side door and a bunch of big, hairy men got out.

"Put me down," whispered Loki. "I'm going in."

"How?" I asked, but he was already gone. I looked back at the men, who were getting musical instruments out of the back of the van and taking them in the side door.

"Hey," I said. "Are you guys playing tonight?" Then I mentally berated myself for the stupid question.

"Yep," said a fat guy with a white beard. "We're Uncle Skunk's Junk Band. I'm Uncle Skunk."

I shook his hand. "What kind of music?"

"Oh, a li'l Southern Rock, a li'l Blues, and a li'l Country."

"Cool, so like, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels type stuff? With maybe some Cream influence too? Or a little Stevie Ray Vaughn? Or do you go oldschool bluesy, like Howlin' Wolf?"

"Dayum, you really know your music. How old are you?"

"I'm 22, but I forgot my ID. Can you guys please get me in?"

"Just help Bo load his drums in and we'll say you're with us."

"Alright! Thanks! What time does the show start?"

"'Bout 8. It's Karaoke 'till then."

"Cool," I said. "Maybe I can do some Karaoke and show you my own musical style."

"Sounds good, little darlin.'"

That was easy. Nobody bothered me while I was helping Bo with his drums, and Bo was a nice guy. Since there were still people onstage doing karaoke, we put the musical instruments next to the stage to be set up later. When we were done, I sat down at a table right next to the stage.

I felt something brush against my leg. "Prepare your distraction for seven o'clock," said Loki. "The targets are a tall Germanic looking human and an average height Asian human." said Loki. Then he walked away, under the cover of the tables.

I found a clock on the wall and stared at it while I listened to idiot after idiot try to do karaoke. They all sucked. The bar patrons were ignoring them to the best of their ability. People were more concerned with their own conversations than they were the music.

Finally it dawned on me how I would distract the bar patrons. I would jump onstage captivate the audience. It was my time to test myself, to see if I could capture a crowd better than Jessica Rabbit. Instead of using sex appeal like her, I would use pure charisma.

I had to prove to myself that charisma in a woman can be just as strong as sex appeal. Too many people believe sex appeal is women's only strength.

I didn't want to be Jessica Rabbit, I wanted to be Bon Scott. I wanted to be ugly as hell and still work a crowd. I didn't have to be pretty like Jessica, or Nosedive for that matter. I would prove it to myself and the whole damn bar.

I went to the Karaoke dude and told him I wanted to do "Sin City" by AC/DC at 7.

"Why seven?" he asked.

"My arch rival comes in at seven after work," I said smoothly. "I have to show this asshole up."

"Alrighty then."

I went back to my seat and watched the clock. I wasn't as nervous as I would be in a crown of people I knew. If I sucked, I'd never have to face these people again.

When the clock struck seven, I looked behind me just to be sure the two men were indeed in the bar. Sure enough there they were. They were just sitting down.

The person before me didn't finish singing her song right at seven, but as soon as she finished, the dude called me up.

I felt that tingly feeling like I do before a fight and I hoped my adrenaline wouldn't make me act stupid. I jumped up on the stage and looked out at the crowd. "You've never heard AC/DC like this!" I said.

Now, I'm actually not that great at AC/DC. But I do have a really loud, gravelly rock n' roll voice. Nobody in the crowd expected such sounds out of a five foot tall female. Soon, everyone was staring at me. Luckily, I was beginning to relax and move to the music more as the song went on. I made eye contact with members of the audience and acted like I was giving a real show. At one point, I saw Loki pull the blond scientist's brief case off of his table and the guy didn't even notice. I pretended I didn't notice either, and kept singing.

After the song everyone was saying, "Joan Jett! Do some Joan Jett!" The people loved me. Uncle Skunk came up and gave me a fist bump.

"I wanted to do the next song!" screamed some angry middle-aged woman in a cowboy hat. "Too bad," said the Karaoke dude. "they want Penelope!"

I'd already shown them I could be ugly and still be an entertainer, so I decided I'd give them something slightly sexy, but not out of my comfort zone. I did Cass Elliot's version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me," a song I knew thanks to my grandmother. As much as I hate to admit it, I was glad Nosedive hadn't come. I enjoyed being the biggest ham in the room. After the song, the people were going wild. "You can do anything!" said Bo. "One more song!" But I glanced at the side door and saw Loki standing outside with the floppy disk in his mouth. He was giving me "the look."

"Thank you," I told the audience, hamming it up. "I'd love to stay and party, but it's time for Uncle Skunk's Junk band to come up here and kick some ass. You can always check out my band, raw Insanity. I love you all! Have a great night!"

I jumped off the stage and headed for the door.

"Aren't you going to stay?" said Uncle Skunk. "I was gonna let you come up and do a song with us!"

"You know I want to," I said. "But uh, my friend, uh, she's in the hospital and she really needs me right now. I'll look you guys up!" I ran out the door before anyone else could go gaga over me.

"About time," said Loki, his mouth full.

"I wish Nosedive could have seen me," I said. "I was awesome!"

"He's rubbing off on you," said Loki.

I picked my dog up and walked as quickly as I could to the hotel. Everyone was hanging around in Wildwing's room.

"We got the thingie, we got the thingie!" I sang happily as I went through the door. Nosedive came and put his arms around me.

"Shhh!" said Loki. "We'll discuss it on the ship."

"You got it?" asked Tanya excitedly.

"Hush!" said Loki.

"Dude!" I exclaimed, "You all should have seen me. Especially you, Nosedive! I got onstage and sang my ass off! So what if it was only karaoke? I was the best those bar people ever heard! They didn't take their eyes off me! And I didn't even have to dress like a showgirl! I got the charisma! I'm awesome."

"I wish I could have been there!" said Dive. "I bet you brought the house down! I can't believe you guys went to a bar. Without ME! While you were at the bar, we were trying to find a decent arcade. They all sucked! Why were you in a bar?"

"Hush!" said Loki. "Will explain soon."

Loki didn't explain everything until we were all on the Aerowing flying back to my house. He gave Tanya the floppy disk and the Antimatter.

"We're American heroes!" I said. "We got secret technology out of the hands of a known spy!"

"And into the hands of Puckworlders," said Mallory.

"You two surprised me," said Duke. "Congrats on a job well done,"

"Is there any way to repay you?" asked Wildwing.

"You can take us BOTH on as spies," I said.

"I just might," said Wildwing.

We were all relaxed and happy. I sat in Nosedive's lap and he played with my hair. Thrash and Mookie kept singing love songs in an attempt to embarrass us, but we didn't care. We felt great.

"It won't take long for me to build the gateway generator," said Tanya. "Especially since I already have some Antimatter to get me started."

My spirits dropped. "I don't want you guys to go," I said. "I understand why you want to leave, but still."

"It'll probably take her a few weeks," said Wildwing.

"Your mom's living room still needs to be painted," said Loki. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if Nosedive stayed with us a few days and helps while Tanya works."

"Nosedive? Help with something? Ha!" said Mallory.

"I'd help HER," said Nosedive. "Just not you."

All in all, the New Mexico trip was great. We never made it to Carlsbad Caverns. As it turns out, it's nowhere near Los Alamos. But my karaoke experience and the confidence I gained from it made the whole trip worth it. Not to mention, all the time with Nosedive.


	23. Chapter 23

After the trip to New Mexico, it was decided that Nosedive would stay with me while Tanya and the others stayed at the Pond and worked on the gateway generator. So, when they landed in the field and dropped me off, they dropped him off as well. Thrash, Mookie, and his team begged him to stay in Anaheim, but in the end, he won. After all, he had promised my mom he would help her paint.

The moment we announced this to my mom, she said, "Oh good! It's great having a man around the house! I'll work him to the bone!"

"That's sexist," I told her. But Nosedive said, "I'll do anything as long as I can be with your daughter." He was laying it on thick.

"You can't stay in her room," said Mom. "Mallory told me you guys shared a hotel room and that's ok with me. But out of respect for my mom and dad-her grandparents-you need to sleep in separate rooms when you're under this roof."

"We don't sleep anyway," I said.

"I bet you don't!" said Mom.

"It's not like you think! We haven't done that!"

"Sure…"

On the first full day of Nosedive's visit, Moka took us out on the lake on his pontoon boat. It was wonderful. We listened to music and I got to watch Nosedive run around in swim trunks. We rented jet skis and went all over the place. At the end of the day, Moka turned into a bat and flew off to eat bugs, leaving me and Nosedive to sit on an island and watch the moon reflect off the water. I can't help it, I'm a sucker for romantic stuff like that.

After a few hours of bug hunting, Moka returned and drove us home. When we got to my place, we weren't ready for the night to end. I showed Nosedive my grandfather's collection of golf carts that line the edge of the forest.

"Welcome to the Golf Cart Graveyard," I said. "Well, almost graveyard. This one works."

We got in the one golf cart that worked and I took Nosedive for a ride over the hills and meadows.

"This is cool," he said, "but this thing is fuckin' slow. We should get Tanya to soup it up for us."

"Hell yeah! But for now, it might be more fun if you ride on the back standing up." So after that, we took turns driving while the other one stood up on the back. At one point, when the sun was beginning to come up, we ended up in Moka's yard. We decided to make a game out of circling around his house as fast as possible. That's when Nosedive, getting a little bit bored with plain-old golf cart driving, decided he would steer with his feet. Of course, this sent us flying over a hill where the golf cart got stuck. We managed to jump off the moving vehicle before it collided with some trees and came to a violent stop.

"Uh, whoops," he said sheepishly, brushing himself off. "At least we're not hurt."

'My grandfather is going to kill us!" I yelled as we started up the hill.

"Nah," said Nosedive, ever care-free. "It'll work out somehow."

When we reached the top of the hill, Moka was standing on his porch smoking a joint.

"Have a little accident?" asked Moka.

We laughed nervously.

"It's alright," said Moka. "I'll help ya out. Your grandfather will never have to know."

Moka hooked a chain to the golf cart and towed it up the hill with his truck. I guess Nosedive was right. It did work out. The old golf cart was barely scratched, and made it back to my house without any problems. We'll forever thank Moka for getting out of that mess.

The day after that, when I came home from school, I found Mom, Nosedive, Grandma, and Loki sitting on the floor in the living room looking at a box.

"Hey sweetie guess what!" said Nosedive.

Before I could say anything, Grandma said, "That damn cat had babies!"

"Puppies and kittens!" said Mom. "Aren't you a proud daddy?" she asked Loki.

"You bet!" said Loki. "they look just like me!"

"They're so cute!" Nosedive crooned.

"It'll be real cute when I eat the afterbirth!" said Amber. "I'd like a little privacy!"

I must confess that I didn't respect Amber's wishes right away. I came and looked at her beautiful litter: three Chihuahuas and three kittens. No Catdogs.

Nosedive looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and I could tell what he was thinking.

"The only reason she was able to have babies with a dog," I explained, "is because she's a toon."

Nosedive didn't respond, because he didn't want me to know that I'd guessed right about what he was thinking.

Once I got a good look at the babies, we put Amber's box in the utility room so she could have her privacy.

"I'm so proud," gushed Loki. "I have to call and tell Wildwing."

"We're not keeping them all," said Grandma.

"The hell we're not!" shouted Loki.

Nosedive leaned in and whispered, "Time for more subliminal messages." I grinned and nodded.

The following days were wonderful. We covered a lot of ground: we finished our slip n' slide, watched tons of cartons, shared many fruit roll-ups, and taught each other a lot about music. I told Nosedive some things about old bands that even he didn't know, and he introduced me to more thrash metal because I was coming to love it. But our favorite times were jamming on old classic rock tunes with Lava late into the night. After all, without the classics, there would be no metal.

Finally, on Friday, Mom got us to help her paint. We helped her spread newspapers all over the floor and then she turned each of us loose with a bucket and a paint brush. During this project, she let us listen to whatever we wanted in exchange for our work, so we listened to Motörhead.

Nosedive kept trying to get paint in my hair, which I took in good humor. But when I got paint in his pretty hair, he was definitely not pleased.

"That's it!" he said. "Nobody messes with my hair! I'm painting your whole body!" He chased me around the house, causing me to accidentally knock over a bucket of paint.

He forgot about the hair situation after that because we were both facing the wrath of my mom.

"You're both cleaning that up!" she barked. "NOW!" She gave us some rags and paint thinner and put us to work.

"This shit is bad for my feathers," Nosedive complained.

"It's bad for my skin," I whined. "And my brain. The fumes are killing me! I'm seeing double!"

"Oh, quit your whining ya divas!" Mom ordered. She did most of the actual painting herself because it took me and Dive quite a while to clean up our mess.

Finally, Mom said, "We've worked hard. It's time to party." She cracked open a beer. "How about a game of Pokémon Stadium?"

"You're a cool mom!" said Nosedive. "But I'm gonna kick your ass at Pokémon Stadium."

"You're on! We'll take turns playing the winner."

While Mom got the Nintendo ready, Loki did the exact same thing as a duck that he did as a Chihuahua: he lounged on the couch. He pretty much stayed out of Amber's way while she was nursing the babies, although he did get up and check on them frequently.

"Can you put in some Lionel Richie?" Mom asked as she turned on the game system.

Nosedive pretended to shoot himself in the head. Apparently he wasn't a Lionel Richie fan, and neither was I! But I grabbed the CD anyway. The CD player was on top of the fridge so my short ass had to climb on top of a chair to reach it. "Can we listen to something different next?" I asked Mom as I pressed the play button.

"You guys have been listening to your music all day," Mom whined.

"Well how about Pink Floyd? We all like Pink Floyd."

"That works. But first we're listening to Lionel."

We decided that Nosedive would play against Mom first because he was the guest and he was eager to kick her ass.

When he beat her, he said, "That was easier than beating the Red Wings!"

She gave him a shove (not a flirty shove, I prayed) and handed me her controller. "Pretend he's with Chicago and destroy him!" she said. We hated Chicago.

That's easier said than done. Nosedive played video games a lot more often than I did. While I played Dive, Mom went and got some clean pillows and sheets for Nosedive's bed on the couch.

"Here, Dive," she said. "I thought you might like some clean sheets."

"Thanks," he said, and proceeded to beat my Starmie with a Charizard. A fucking Charizard!

"Another victory for Anaheim!" he announced. "Nobody beats the Dive at Pokémon stadium."

"Just wait," I said. "Even if I can't beat you, I know someone who can. Doom is the master of Pokémon Stadium! I've never beaten her."

"Call her up!" he said. "I'll play her right now."

"Better not. Her parents hate late night calls. But you'll get your chance one of these days, since you're staying on Earth."

Mom came back and took the controller. Then, "Say You, Say Me" came on, and the three of us started singing along (even though two of us hated Lionel Richie), replacing the words with "Staryu, Starmie." Gods, we were such nerds.

After several more rounds, Mom was passed out on one end of our big blue couch and Loki was passed out on the other end.

"So much for you taking the couch," I said.

"That's alright," he replied. "I'm too wired to sleep."

"Same here," I told him. "I'm actually kind of hungry, but I don't know how to cook."

"You don't?"

"Nope," I said. I mean, they try to teach me to in Home Ec, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

"That's OK," he said. "I gotcha. Will your mom care if I dig through the fridge?"

"Nah."

"Cool. What's your favorite thing to eat?"

"Bacon."

He nodded and searched the fridge until he found some bacon. As he put it in the microwave to defrost, he said, "When Tanya has this generator built, we can take a trip to Puckworld and you can try Yaskar. It's like bacon only better!"

"I'd love to." I leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at him. He was pretty, he was funny, and he could cook! He was perfect.

I took Lionel Richie out of the CD player and put in Pink Floyd.

"If I was every going to get stoned," said Nosedive, "I'd get stoned listening to Pink Floyd."

"Please don't get too caught up in the party life," I told him. "My mom does drugs and I'm afraid it'll kill her one day."

"She does?" He looked concerned.

I couldn't believe I'd told such a big secret. "Forget I said it. It's not a huge deal. Let's talk about happy stuff."

"Ok," he said, "but if you decide to talk about it I'm here. I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

When the bacon was thawed, I showed Nosedive where the frying pans were. And then, "Comfortably Numb" came on. "I gotta change it!" I said. "This song freaks me out!" I jumped up on the chair and pressed the skip button so I could hear the next song.

"Why does it freak you out?" he asked.

"It's the lyrics," I explained. "The part about when he was a child and had a fever and his hands felt like balloons. It scares me because I get sick a lot and it's exactly how I feel when I have a fever. And then I start to see shit. Shadows in the corner of my eye and stuff. Or the pictures on the wall look like they're moving."

"Trippy," said Nosedive.

"Yeah, but I don't like it," I said. "It freaks me the fuck out. Even sometimes when I don't have a fever and Mom's passed out my mind runs away with me. It doesn't happen when you're here, though."

"That's good," he said. "This summer I've been seeing shit too, but I think it's because I don't get enough sleep. I don't take my insomnia meds during the offseason 'cause I don't want to become immune to 'em."

"What kind of stuff do you see?"

"Shadow people. It's actually pretty normal for those of us who don't sleep much. Your shadow people probably come from worrying about your mom."

I thought about it, and he was probably right. But that didn't stop me from wondering if my shadow people were ghosts.

I watched as the beautiful duck cooked that sizzling bacon. I wasn't sure if it was him or the food making my mouth water.

The frying process didn't take nearly as long as the thawing process. When the bacon was done, Nosedive put it on a plate on the counter. Rather than take it to the table, we just stood and ate it by the microwave. He'd made it just like I like it: none of the fat had been burnt off.

"This is close to how we make yaskar at home," he explained, "only we fry it with gerna to make it sweeter."

"What's that?"

"It comes from a plant. I haven't found anything that tastes like it on this planet."

"I'd love to try it," I said.

We practically wolfed down the bacon. Once I was full, felt incredibly tired. I looked out the window. The sun was starting to come up.

"What a pity," I said. "My mom is passed out on the couch. You just might have to cuddle with me tonight."

"That is truly a shame," said Nosedive jokingly. We went into my room and locked the door behind us.

"Come cuddle me," I said. He crawled on the bed with me and cuddled me.

"Is it cool if we turn on the TV?" he asked.

"I usually sleep to a CD," I said. "But go ahead and watch what you want. I'm just glad to have you here."

He got the remote off of the table (all the while holding onto me) and turned the TV on. I really didn't mind. For once, I wasn't in the mood to listen to Jax Flower.

I took Nosedive's hand in mine. "You have to understand something," I said, my heart pounding. "You represent something to me. You're my sanctuary from the crappy fucking world. As soon as you landed on this planet it gave me hope that there can be better worlds. That's why I've gotten so attached so fast. You meant something to me before I even met you."

"The moment I saw you, I knew you weren't like other humans," he said.

"The moment I saw you, I knew you weren't like other dudes."

We shared a moment of silence, just holding each other because we gave each other hope.


	24. Chapter 24

\- Conclusion -

` Saturday morning cartoons had already come on, and Nosedive and I were still awake, sitting up in my room watching TV.

Then Nosedive got a call on his communicator. It was Wildwing.

"Hey bro," said Wildwing. "Tanya's done it! She's built the generator! It seems to be working great! We're coming to get you so you can come with us to Peeravara."

"Are we…moving to back there?" asked Dive.

"Tanya and Mallory might, but I'm not" said Wing. "I can't! My contract's been renewed. It I don't play this season Phil's gonna blow a gasket!"

Nosedive quickly pulled me close with his free arm. "Good! 'Cause I'm all for a trip to check on our home planet, but…"

"Understood, Nosedive. You have more friends here than you did at home…" Over the course of days I'd discovered that Nosedive was somewhat of an outcast on his planet due to his interest in old legends and folklore. Yet another way in which he was like me.

"We'll be there some time around dusk," said Wildwing.

"Alright bro! See ya!" Nosedive closed his comm and I gave him a kiss on the tip of his bill. I was overjoyed, yet still sad that he was going to be leaving for a while, especially since his planet was probably a very dangerous place after the invasion.

The rest of the day was spent playing on our slip n' slide. We were so proud of that thing. We were so happy together that we didn't even felt like two people who had stayed up all night. Even Loki, in duck form, joined us on the slip n' slide (but after a few minutes, he turned back into a dog and watched us protectively, scratching his fleas).

Soon, we saw the Aerowing land at the foot of the hill. Our hearts sank as the Ducks exited the ship.

"You ready to go, baby bro?" Wildwing asked Nosedive.

"I guess," he mumbled.

"I'll see you guys in September!" said Loki. He'd signed a contract, and would be joining the others in training camp. If he did well, he'd be able to play during the upcoming season. "I hope I get to see you and Tanya too," he told Mallory.

"We'll play until they force us to quit," said Mal. "But if this planet gets too crappy, I'm leaving for good."

"I don't know," said Tanya. "I might leave for good regardless."

"I'll miss you!" Loki and I said simultaneously.

Once Loki said his goodbyes to the team, they went ahead and boarded the Aerowing. Except Nosedive, who lingered a while. We wrapped our arms around each other and just stood there for a few minutes.

"Come on!" Mallory called from the ship.

"I guess I gotta go," he said, nuzzling me with his bill.

"I'll miss you," I told him, and gave him a kiss.

"I'll miss you too. But we'll be together again. Kora resk, on cieko." Then he boarded his ship and headed for the skies.

Loki and I watched as the Aerowing became a dot in the distance.

"What did that mean?" I asked Loki. "Those words he said before he left."

"I don't know if I should tell you," said Loki. "After all, he hasn't really known you long enough to be saying those things."

"Come on, Loki! What did he say?"

"He said 'Damn, I want some tacos.'"

"Very funny, Loki. What did he say?"

Loki just smiled.


End file.
